About three weeks into her first pregnancy, Sylvia Luu began to loathe the smell of her border collie mix, Ranger.

Luu could hardly be in the same room as Ranger without becoming nauseous. His drool repulsed her, and she found the smell of his fur so disgusting she wore a nose plug all day.

“Before pregnancy, I used to smell my dog’s paws a lot,” says Luu. “But during pregnancy, I would throw up if I ever tried that.”

At the time, Luu, 35, and Ranger had enjoyed 12 happy years together. Ranger slept in Luu’s bed. She walked him in all weather, and let him lick her face.

Luu’s doctor said that her nausea was normal and simply advised her to drink more water to avoid dehydration from vomiting, but that didn’t alleviate Luu’s distress. “I was so heartbroken that I couldn’t love my dog as much as I wanted to,” says Luu, whose husband took over pet care duties. She wondered about rehoming Ranger, and was relieved when, upon delivering her firstborn, her aversion vanished.

By the time of her second pregnancy, Luu was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum. The condition is caused by hormonal shifts, much like the more familiar morning sickness. For 1%-3% of pregnant people, these shifts result in extreme nausea and disgust sensitivity that can be triggered by any number of things – in this case, pet odour.

Although the diagnosis was helpful, the changes were a difficult and destabilising addition to an already labile time. Luu now wishes that she had received some emotional support from her medical team, practical tips for coping with her diagnosis or validation of the unsettling shift in her feelings toward Ranger.

But there is almost no research into the specific phenomenon of pet aversion during and post-pregnancy.

“This topic is at an intersection of women’s health being underfunded and human-animal bond work being trivialised,” says Dr Katherine Compitus, director of veterinary social work at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work, who has helped clients experiencing pet aversion.

Yet there are signs that prenatal pet aversion isn’t particularly rare.

A survey of 1,077 women who had been pregnant within the past three years found that 15% of pet-owning respondents experienced aversion to their dog during pregnancy, according to 2025 research from the UK pet insurer ManyPets.

On Reddit, pregnant posters complain about feeling annoyed or repelled by their pets’ noises, smells and behaviours. “I’m a huge animal lover but this pregnancy I hate all of them,” wrote one user. “12 weeks and SO disgusted by my dog,” another admitted.

Perinatal depression, anxiety and OCD may contribute to intense, confusing feelings, and a pet may become an outlet for difficult emotions too risky to direct at a partner or child, Compitus says. She recommends that anyone whose feelings about their pets are becoming distressing or out of proportion speak with a therapist, particularly those who use exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, as these practices can be particularly useful for working through repulsion, rage and disgust.

For others, pet aversion may ramp up once the baby is home.

Katherine Davidson, a dog trainer based in Montreal, noticed herself becoming irritated with the shedding of her three dogs when she became pregnant. “It had never bothered me before,” she says.

But when her daughter was born, the aggravation spiked – something she attributes to practical hygiene concerns and new-mom burnout. “I started feeling resentful” of the dogs, she says, “and that surprised me, because prior, my dogs were my entire life … they were my babies.”

“My postpartum loathing of [pet cat] Lucky made me wonder whether I might be a late-onset psychopath,” mused an anonymous writer in a controversial 2024 essay in the Cut.

The postpartum period can be a vulnerable time for the human-animal bond, says Dr Shelby McDonald, an human-animal interaction researcher and director of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Center for Veterinary Social Work.

New families with pets face challenges including the safety of their baby around a rambunctious dog, and irritation due to barking, shedding and the click-clack of canine nails. “A family’s capacity to meet an animal’s needs may change substantially,” whether physically, emotionally, practically or financially, she says.

“Research with new parents has documented reductions in time and attention devoted to pets … and, for some people, changes in feelings of closeness to their animals,” says McDonald, who is currently collaborating on a study with the University of Edinburgh involving in-depth interviews with mothers in the UK about their experiences with companion animals during pregnancy and postpartum.

Many mothers describe their relationships to their animals improving with time, according to McDonald’s early research.

“A parent can remain deeply attached to an animal while temporarily having much less capacity to care for or interact with them in the way they did before the baby arrived,” she says.

While not yet complete, McDonald’s work also indicates that a minority of mothers relinquish their pets during the postpartum period, seemingly out of concern for the animal’s welfare and quality of life; clear population-level data is not yet available.

There can be “tremendous shame” associated with relinquishing or rehoming an animal, notes McDonald. Yet it’s important for new parents to notice when normal frustration and caregiver fatigue cross into the territory of abuse or neglect, which McDonald describes as an animal being denied adequate food and water, opportunities for exercise and elimination, a reasonably clean and safe environment, veterinary care or social interaction.

“Recognizing that an animal’s welfare and wellbeing is being compromised and making a thoughtful plan for their care can itself be an act of responsible caregiving,” she says. “The priority should be the wellbeing and safety of both the person and the animal, rather than preserving a particular living arrangement at all costs.”

Compitus suggests getting ahead of this issue by getting help from a friend, relative or petsitter. A reputable shelter or rescue may be able to provide guidance; some may even have safety-net programs designed to offer temporary reprieve to overwhelmed pet owners.

Davidson considered rehoming her pets postpartum, but her dilemma was as existential as it was practical. She’d always been a “big animal person”, she says, and the change was confronting.

“You’re just like: ‘Oh, my God, I just need someone to understand, and to tell me these feelings are normal,” says Davidson. Shame and guilt may also contribute to silence around the topic, says Compitus. “If a mother is feeling this aversion toward her pets, it might call into question their identity as a mother: ‘What kind of mother will I be if I can’t even take care of my pet?’”

For Davidson, who ended up keeping her dogs, the negativity she felt toward her pets passed in a matter of months as the household adjusted to a new routine.

Now, when she works with dog-training clients who have growing families, Davidson tells them it’s not unusual to feel frustration or a lack of love for their animals postpartum, and that it often goes away. She shares strategies that worked for her, such as creating pet-free spaces in her home, using a robot vacuum for shedding, and getting help with duties like dog-walking, vet and grooming appointments, and cleaning.

Today, Davidson has three children under six, and has added a six-month-old puppy to her menagerie. “It’s nice having my animals with me, and seeing them grow up with my children,” she says.