Posted on 01/15/2007 4:42:58 PM PST by ExpatCanuck
We just picked up a beautiful black Lab puppy (9 weeks old as I write this) last weekend. He is devilishly handsome and too smart for his own good right now - hopefully the brain power will serve him well when he has the capacity to use it responsiby (the same descriptoin and hopes apply to my 2 human kids :)). He has a hunting dog's pedigree and is a purebreed, and I am reluctantly considering the neutering option for him when the time comes. Any suggestions from experienced dog owners would be greatly appreciated.
They sure are yappy and nippy though!
Squirrels are afraid of Labs.
LOL. Right you are. We lost a vase or two and had drink spilled by the tail! Our also had the habit of bouncing on his front feet when we was excited. He flipped our coffee table over a few times doing this. Our Vet made the comment that he would be the perfect dog if we could remove the springs from his front feet.
Mine would pull with a choker chain until she barfed.
Halti cured it.
Buy him a KONG brand "BALL",
Watch out for the Kong starting to get torn up....years ago, one of my Nealoptan Mastiffs ate a Kong and had to have surgery to remove it...3 liter Coke bottles were another of his favorite chew toys, especially after the Coke started leaking out.
"Nealoptan"
...Neapolitan...I guess I had better get some sleep.
I was insane enough to try to raise 2 lab puppies at the same time.
Made the first mistake in the book...have tried not to make any others.
My girls are 3 now and are wonderful dogs.
WOW, what an impressive array of ribbons. I know just how much work that took on your part, congratulations.
(that pic was taken last year, she has more now!)
One of the great things about the agility trials is that the humans get ribbons . . . and the dogs get toys! They have big Rubbermaid bins labelled "1st place" "2nd place" "3rd & 4th place" filled with chew toys, squeaky toys, rope pull toys, balls, etc. Shelley doesn't always get her entry fee back in dog toys, but if you count the value of the ribbons and the free breakfast, lunch and coffee for humans who work the events (as gate steward, jump crew, etc.) we almost break even!
The duck is considered an adequate prize for retrievers, but on the other hand I don't have to run alongside her, I just stand at the line and look encouraging . . .
Neapolitans are so great--a friend of our has one. Their house was broken into while they were gone, once, and they came home to find the place a wreck, the door standing wide open, the burglar up a tree outside, and the Neapolitan at the base of the tree, keeping watch.
They let the guy stay up there, while they called the police.
What you have to watch out for is the high-end chocolate and especially the Baker's Chocolate (the wax paper wrapped chunks that come in a cardboard box). It's almost pure cocoa butter, you only need one square for an entire chocolate cake. A couple of pieces of that will indeed kill a dog.
Doggie Ping!
Unplug electrical appliances wherever the dog can reach them.
I had a teething Sheltie that chewed through a plugged-in TV cord. Left a 2-inch piece of cord plugged in with blue sparks shooting out! (of the cord, not the dog...)
I have a yellow lab, and he's a sheer joy...
ALTHOUGH...
If my experiences with labs is any indication, prepare yourself for a very, um...needy breed. My dog is sweet, fun, and extremely playful, but he's also incredibly clingy and needy. He can't stand to be left alone at all; even when you go into the bathroom he'll whine and scratch at the door. Also, he'll follow you everywhere, and practically underneath your feat everywhere you walk.
It also doesn't help when my girlfriend comes over; when we're trying to watch a movie or something and we're sitting next to each other on the couch, he tends to want to get up between us. He's so jealous!
One day we came home to find that our Basenji, Chammie, had eaten nearly an entire bag of Hershey Kisses. However, he did NOT eat the wrappers. They were in a tidy pile on the kitchen floor!
Beautiful! I see you have a guardian of the cushions too.
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