Dog licking baby

My dog is obsessed with licking my 6 month old. He does it when he is in a bit of a playful mood and he tries to lick his hands and face and then brings a toy over like he's trying to play. He is quite a licky dog anyway and I have always let him lick my nose once like a little kiss 😂 so I dont know if this is what he's trying to do. I don't think it's aggressive in any way and is just playful. I find it hard because I don't want to tell him off and I generally don't mind him licking him a bit as I always will always wipe him straight after but I don't want to encourage it either. Sometimes he can get a bit much as well. Can anyone help the best way to get around this? When we first brought home our baby the dog was really unsettled and wary so I love that they are interacting more now.

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Just to add my baby loves the dog and is always giggling when our dog tries to lick him

Following as I'm in similar situation

My dog is like this! My little girl LOVES him. She puts her feet near his mouth so he’ll lick them or take her socks because she thinks it’s hilarious. She’s 6 months old too! She loves our cats as well. We let the dog li k her hands but not face, we reinforce boundaries with him as we would for guests or other people when he gets excited. He’s a German shepherd x border collie so he’s a big boy but thinks he’s way smaller so it’s super important we set clear boundaries when it comes to baby. But honestly I think it’s harmless. We basically just told him “she wants to say hello” or “oh she wants to give you some fuss buddy” and let him sit and wait for her to extend her hand. If he gets too excited we ask him if go get a toy to bring to us to distract him from getting too rowdy! And that works really well for us tbh.

Trainers say to put a boundary between dogs and babies. The dog needs to see your baby as part of your pack, not a playmate or part of his pack. This means that you as pack leader can’t allow your dog to get close to your baby. It can become a risk if the dog continues to see the baby as a playmate. Say something like “ah, ah, ah” when he approaches the baby and give a treat. Say it calmly, don’t shout. You can continue to praise him in the baby’s presence etc to strike a bond but don’t let him touch the baby. We followed training programme with our two babies and two dogs. There are loads of videos on YouTube on this topic which can help.

My dog loves licking my LO and my LO loves being licked by the dog. I used to try to keep them apart (or him away from her face), but I stopped doing that when she started eating food of the floor 😂

My dogs are like this to my Little one too! We tell them no and they listen sometimes my little boy likes it and doesn’t mind but we try to stop it- someone told me once dogs mouths are cleaner than humans so that’s calmed me down a bit 🤏🏽 but it is stressful xx

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