What is it with labs? These dogs seem to come hard-wired with an eating disorder that would obviously be fatal if they didn’t have human protectors watching over them constantly.
A few years back I was in the waiting room at my vet’s office with my 21 year old cat. There was young lady there with a labrador who’s home she’d been housesitting at while owners were on vacation. The dog had eaten its nylon leash . . . in three bites. One piece had been fished out the back end by a vet on a previous visit, and another had passed through on its own, but the third piece was firmly stuck deep inside and the dog was being admitted for major abdominal surgery to remove it.
I just don’t get how these dogs, that look like nice normal dogs (and not the result of some insane breeding scheme, like many dog breeds), picked up this suicidal gene across the whole breed.
My guess is it’s been bred in as an unwelcome side. Labs are retrievers and I can tell you mine is like the little kid who is not happy unless he is putting something in his mouth.
It’s really sort of funny. His mouth is never empty - it may ba a sock, a water bottle, a paper plate. When I let him out in the am, he turns back from the door and runs around the house searching, until he can find something to carry out. I didn’t have to teach him to fetch. He knew from the time he could run.