Paulp

When I first got Ebon at 3 months did not know what to get so got a small bag of IAMS. This seemed ridiculously expensive so then bought a bag of supercoat puppy. On the supercoat he started doing horrible poos (I changed the food over as recommended) and his behaviour noticeably deteriorated so I started looking into pet food and eventually settled on Advance large breed puppy partly because it is Australian owned. The behaviour settled and the poos returned to something not quite so offensive. I decided that for his health I was willing to pay the cost. He also gets about 100g of pal puppy wet food mixed into the advance in the evenings because he would occasionally lose interest in eating (pretty odd for a lab/GR) and this would get him eating again. On top of this he also gets a kong stuffed with platinum chicken (the rolls of food) most days as it is the perfect stiffness to last in the kong as long as possible.

It is not quite the same but I corrected my labs jumping habits by simply turning around and walking back inside every time he jumped on me as I walked outside. I would wait a couple of minutes and then go out again. Labs crave your company and removing it is a powerful incentive to stop doing something. It was a bit of a pain if I just wanted to nip outside and do something but it corrected the behaviour.

Fraser is a great looking pup. Does he dig holes? If he is bored that is one of the things he will do to fill time (as well as pulling washing off clotheslines). Maybe one of the reasons I've had no problems with Ebon doing these things is that I built a sandpit early on to redirect his hole digging, plant destroying energies. It seemed to work quite well. It is worth doing properly though. If your up for a bit of a construction project here is Ebons sandpit. I found one sleeper deep was not enough so went two deep. Subsequent to this photo he dragged off the shadecloth so reattached reinforced with dog fence. He also managed to shift the top row of sleepers so they had to be re-enforced.

I try not to limit the freedom of my dogs in the yard if I'm there to supervise. IMO it is better to teach the dog not to behave in a certain way than to avoid the issue by keeping them away from what they want to get into. Of course if you're not there then you can't teach so when you're away there is not much choice but to restrict them. If you're going to use a staked barrier to keep your dog out of somewhere he really wants to be I'd use star pickets (with plastic tops) rather than hardwood stakes. I set up a sand screen around my dogs sand pit to keep the sand in (rather than all over the fence, gardens and yard) and Ebon first snapped the hardwood stakes in version1 and then even managed to pull a star picket out of the ground with version2.

Don't mean to be facetious but I would have thought after owning a lab for 8 months you would realise that water in any form is a treat rather than a deterrent . I have had the good fortune for my lab never to discover this trick but I've read of people hanging tea towels doused in nasty tasting stuff on the line during the day. Personally I think the dog is probably smart enough to see through this trick but worth a try? Another trick that I was told about at obedience school but again have not tried myself is that if you find a piece of clothing pulled off the washing line (or a chewed plant or a hole dug) get a stick and proceed to beat the stuffing out of the offending item (not the dog) and abuse it and carry on like an idiot. The theory is that the dog will think that the thing it has attacked is bad (hence the reason it is being beaten) and probably not to be interfered with in future. The more passionate you are in your abuse of the subject the better it will work on the dog and the crazier your nieghbours will think you are.

A pigs ear is how I get Ebon to sit still for ten minutes, if I'm lucky, for a brush.

Yes and if you are an existing member I'm sure the first twilight training for the year is 5/2.

Motion sickness is caused by a mismatch of information coming from different sets of sensors. If Brock is in a crate his inner ears are telling his brain that they are moving around but his eyes are saying that they are stationary (all he can see is the inside of the car which is stationary relative to him). Someone mentioned elevating the crate to let him see out which is a good move as his eyes are then confirming the inner ears info that they are moving. If he is drooling before getting in the car then it sounds like he has anxiety issues about travelling (probably because there is an association between the car and being ill) which things like travel calm and valium would help.

Both of our labs moped around and generally seemed off colour for the rest of the day after their operations as the anaesthetic wore off but were back up and raring to go the next day.

Payed $137 to get Ebon desexed at FountainGate vets (a few months ago) so sounds like the going rate around our area. Would highly recommend them as good vets and also their association with Pets @ Home (the clinic actually shares the building) who have taken the move to stop selling puppies and kittens and set up an adoption centre instead.

We have a ten month old male black lab (Ebon) who has been with us since a puppy. A couple of days ago I brought home a 12 month old yellow lab bitch (Ala) who is 2/3 Ebons size. Straight away the rough play and dominance tussle started and one of Ebons strategys was jumping on her and humping (he is desexed, she is not yet). Last night she took it to a new level by jumping on his back and humping him! I don't know what was funnier, the concept of Ala humping Ebon or the look on him when it happened.

I have well chewed bottle of "true blue stop chew", it was about a quarter full when the wind blew it off a shelf outside and our lab pup (about 7 months old at the time) found it and proceeded to demonstrate the futility of its use.

I give my 6 month lab pup 2L softdrink bottles with the label and lock ring removed. The 2L bottles are big enough that he can't quite get his mouth around the body of them. 1/3 filling them with water makes them even more of a challenge to pick up and lug around as the water sloshing around keeps shifting the bottles balance. He kills empty bottles in a couple of days but this makes them last weeks.