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At puppy school my gorgeous little Martha is THE BOSSY ONE. She's the biggest (although the youngest), and tends to stand over the smaller pups and push down on them with her paw. She seems to want them to lie down and show they are submissive. With adult dogs, she is initially submissive but very quickly becomes quite playful, jumps maniacally up into their face and initiates play. It often annoys older dogs. A dog growled at the very sight of her at the vet last night and she, undaunted, continued to want to approach him. She hasn't met that many adult dogs (it's still another four weeks until her final shots). At home, I do pack training. I always eat something before I give her her meal, and she must sit and wait until I say so before she can tuck in. I have her toys in a toy box and I give her three everyday. I never chase her, she follows me and I go through doors first. The one thing I have done is play tug games with her. I played tug LOTS, because she loved it. I made sure to always win and I have taught her the "off" command which means give up whatever she's tugging. She's good at this. We do lots of training cause she loves it. (I know everyone thinks their dog is intelligent, but she's very intelligent.) She play growls when she plays tug. She bites a lot and barks. She barks sometimes to get our attention (we usually leave the room if this happens). Sometimes she barks for her own entertainment — at a toy or with what appears to be general joie de vivre. As for biting, in the beginning I did the yelping thing, but this just seemed to rev her up. Now I usually stuff something she can chew into her mouth instead. She won't persist. If she really hurts me, she either goes into the bathroom for some time out, or we leave the room. Despite all this, I feel like there's only been a small improvement. Her first instinct is still to chew on me. (I know there's another thread about biting, I'm just trying to give you a picture of her personality so as to better discuss her dominance issues.) The only thing that ever seems to bother her is when she hears dogs barking in the neighbourhood. Then she'll come running back to wherever I am and sits next to or on me. So, how much do I accept dominance is a part of her personality? How much do I try and change her? How can I train her? If she is being dominant with another dog (at puppy school, for example) do I intervene, or let them sort out their roles? I've stopped playing tug games — is that right? What else can I do in the home? Any advice would be helpful. She is eleven weeks old, so I'd like to nip worrisome behaviour in the bud. But I'm not even sure if which behaviour is worrisome and which isn't. She's such a gorgeous girl and I want others to love her; I don't want her to be thought of as a bully. PS. Youse chaps are really terrific. I feel like I'm a bit of an irritating puppy, starting threads all over the place and leaving my smelly comments everywhere. I'm sure this sounds paranoid, but I hope I'm not "talking" too much on this forum. I'm just at that exciting stage of learning about dogs and training where I feel like I can't cram information into the brain quickly enough. So thanks for helping me out, both me and Martha 'preciate it.

Oh my god. This works. Martha just swiveled her head around as if to say, "What gives, Crazy Lady?" I have a feeling its efficacy might wear off when she comes to expect it. GSD Handler, excellent point about consistency (and I know I have stuffed up there), but just out of interest, what method did you use?

Well done Samantha and well done you! Others will know more than me — Martha is on her way, but we're not up to this stage yet — but the evidence certainly suggests she's learnt to hold it through the night. To be honest, I had to read this twice to make sure I wasn't missing something. (Which I still think I may be.) Surely everything is going to plan? I guess if you wanted to be sure, you could try giving her the option of going out during the night every second or third night. Just to ensure she really would prefer to sleep. What do you intend to do when you're confident she's toilet trained? Will you leave the crate door open at night? I didn't crate train Martha so I don't know much about it, although I'm thinking of getting her a crate as everyone says their pups love them so much. So you should be. What an excellent girl. Give her a congratulatory tummy rub from me.

oochysmoochybudabudabudaboo *covers Tayza in kisses while Tayza tries desperately to get away and everyone else looks on awkwardly*

Curse you all for suggesting the most expensive option!!! *shakes fist at sky* However, your reasoning is spot on. She does need the toughest option.Plus it's all weather, right? So can be in cosy kennel or out in shady spot in summer. And it looks quite attractive to me. Amazingly, her inside bed is the only thing she doesn't chew. So let's hope she treats the D1000 the same. Now just have to sweet talk His Highness into it! We may be coming out to see you soon Sag! PS Winterpaws, thanks for the heads up on the Great Rugs beds. They look great — like the Snoozas but a bit cheaper.

Arghhhh! *pause for breath* ARGHHHHHH!!!!!! What an excellent idea. I could clicker train with this too, huh? Click and treat for non-mouthy playing. Martha has lots of chew toys and stuffing one in her mouth before she gets to me does work. What I haven't given her though are many bones. I will get some tomorrow. Thanks Poodlefan and everyone else. Great advice. Sorry Poochmad, I squeezed in on your thread, but I needed to hear all that too!

We have this problem too. Martha attaches herself by her teeth to my clothes and for a while I couldn't move without setting her off more. This has improved though since I taught her the command "off", which just means "give" or "let go" in Martha language. She will stop and sit for a treat if she's hears "off". But then I feel I've wasted an opportunity to deprive her off my company and help her understand biting is anti-social. Haven't quite figured that one out yet. I hope so. It's good to be reminded. I'm getting tired of walking out of the room, but if it's going to pay off down the track it will be worth it.

What a gorgeous little bundle! What are you going to call him? I feed my lab Orijen puppy food and think it's excellent. You'll find a lot of Orijen fans around here. There's a good website — www.dogfoodanalysis.com — which gives dog foods a star rating. The best thing I learned was to look at all the ingredients up until the first fat. These are the main ingredients. Then look at the meats, grains and vegies. Look for named meat products rather than generic terms. Check out how many grains there are. Your first ingredient may be meat, but if the next three are grains then there's probably more grains than meat, and as Poodlefan points out, dogs don't really need grains. Avoid corn particularly. Good luck! Keep us informed.

Yeah. CSI: Melbourne. Martha is my trusty pardner! I really don't mean to be mean, just don't want to be taken for a ride.

Goodness me! It looks like Cocosonni and LabsGalore may have gone to school together! Note the space between sentences, the space between comma, the interesting capitalisation, the spelling, the unusual style. C'mon Cocosonni, we're not idiots. Look, I understand that you felt unsupported, but there is really no need to take the advice you've received personally. There's certainly no need to invent another forum member. No one is judging your children or your family. That's the great thing about this place — it's not about your family. It's about dogs. Surely it's better to get honest advice that challenges you than someone telling you what you want to hear? As I said earlier, I think you're lucky to get advice from breeders — I wish the people who bought Martha had been able to talk to breeders before I got Martha. (Much as I adore them for what they did in giving her to me — anyway, that's another story...) Either way, I still wish you well with your new arrivals, but I still think you should reconsider getting the pair. The (real, not invented) people who have experience of raising two puppies are pretty unequivocal in their feelings that they would not do it again. I think perhaps you weren't quite ready for the frank approach most people take on this board, and you've become defensive, and perhaps haven't really listened to the advice you've been given. I'm a newcomer here myself, but I like this board because the people are clever and a bit bolshie and let it be known if they disagree with you. People aren't insulting you or your family, they're just giving frank and fearless advice. It may take you some getting used to, but I think you should stop feeling offended and just work out what's going to be the best way your family can embrace a new member — or members! — using the great resources this site has to offer. And please, can you kill LabsGalore off?!?

Hi All, I have an eleven-week old Lab. She has a lovely, cosy bed inside, which has a very hand detachable mat. But I'm converting a small shed outside into a kennel, and it has a concrete floor which will be too cold and hard for her to sleep on. I was thinking of getting one of those Snooza raised beds. Alternatively, I have some wooden pallets — I could those to get her off the floor then get a Snooza pet futon. (Or equivalent bedding.) So, my questions are: 1. has anyone got Snooza beds? Which one do you have? Do you recommend them? 2. would an adult Labrador need a large or extra-large?

How are things going Panda Girl?

Interesting. Many thanks for posting. What is the success rate, I wonder.

I know! It's brilliant having all these Lab pups on the forum. Sometimes I feel so desperately in love with Martha I think it might be a tad unhealthy. Then I remember that there's a place I can come too and rabbit on about my dog with people who feel just the same way. Ok. I'm going to try it tonight. Martha has been fantastic with toilet training lately. *Knocks frantically on anything remotely wooden* But we always seem to miss a nighttime widdle. Did he have fun? And where's our pictures! Maybe you should be hanging around with him outside for a while. Just ignore him if he wants to play. He will get bored and may urinate then. Just a thought. I often had to hang out with Martha for a minute or two before she finally went. Not fun at 3 in the morning, of course. When I was still going out with Martha every hour I kept my partner's big fluffy dressing gown at the door with my iPod in it. I listen to audio books and podcasts from the BBC, so everytime we went outside I'd get another installment. Fingers crossed! I don't know, but I look forward to responses as I would like to start putting Martha outside. I have a shed which I'm converting into a kennel. Tell me about it. Before I got Martha, gardening was actually an interest. I'm too busy to worry about the garden now, but I was planning to start a thread asking others what tips they have on keeping the garden nice with a puppy who likes to dig and gnaw on plants. I have got a whole lot of bulbs in the garden and flowering annuals in the garden, but I can see I'm going to have to reevaluate the outdoor area. I think I am going to go for hardy annuals in the garden bed, and save the flowers for pots which I can elevate. Sorry to go off-topic...

I'm just a beginner, and other people will advise you better than I, but here goes. Firstly, have you tried clicker training? I'm a recent convert and I'm finding it REALLY useful. Martha loves it too. Why is it exciting to him that you are opening a window? It may help if you desensitise him to these activities. Maybe do some training around opening and closing windows and doors. I would train him to sit when doors are opened and allow you to walk through the door first. He sounds anxious — is there anything you can do to make him feel more confident? To be honest, I'd be letting him inside and cleaning up the mess for a while. I know it's a hassle, but he really isn't properly toilet trained yet, and accidents are part of the parcel. Does he have a mat inside? I am working now with Martha on going to her mat on command. A mat inside would give him a secure place to be. A crate may be even better. Have you talked to the vet about this? (I know you've asked the vet about peeing, but what about the pooing?) It does sound like strange behaviour — again, it sounds like anxiety-related behaviour. You would think the dogs would have worked out their rank order by now though. I don't think it should be continuing to cause Tyson so much stress. But as I said earlier, I'm no expert. Others should know. Again, I reckon let him in the house now and clean up when you need to. I really think he might need to feel the security of being part of the family.

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM! Brilliant! I wanna go!

My pet shop only had an $8 clicker, which I thought expensive for a bit of plastic and metal, but I'm glad I got it because it has a wristband. The wristband is really useful — recommend it. By the way, the eBay seller I got my Kong from is called devo.aus. Their prices are cheap and if you buy a few things it saves on postage. I'm a massive eBayer with PayPal all set up, so it made sense for me; otherwise KMart would probably be the go.

I knew two dogs who lived together who used to do exactly that. The would run for the ball together, but Dog A would always get the ball. Even if Dog B got their first, she'd leave it for Dog A. Then they run back to the handler together. About five metres out, Dog A would drop the ball in front of Dog B and Dog B would drop it at the feet of the handler. They never deviated from this routine. Dog A was generally the Alpha. But the way, I'm also still laughing at the dog who presents his dick to be licked.

I've never seen a black Shih Tzu before. Is it wrong to find Tux so cute I want to gobble him up? Meanwhile, that Bailey has STOLEN MY HEART. Is Bailey ten weeks old in those photos? Or a bit younger? I only ask my my ten-week-old Lab looks less puppyish, and I'm constantly paranoid she's growing too fast.

This is an interesting question. I've heard lots of conflicting advice — some people say take your pups water up after dinner, others say that you should never deny your dog fresh drinking water. I must say my gut instinct is always give Martha access to fresh water, and put up with overnight accidents should they occur. Then again, Martha is around 95% toilet-trained during the day but she does still have accidents at night. Perhaps I'm prolonging the toilet training process? But what do others think? Does it do them any harm to restrict access to water in the evenings to prevent accidents? Sorry to get off topic Kristen. I don't crate train so can't answer the question, but it would certainly help to know how big the crate is.

Hi Panda Girl, I'm working all this stuff out myself at the moment with my new puppy — well, not this particular issue, but others like it — so I'm not qualified to give you advice, but I'd certainly say it sounds like you're doing all the right things, and you probably just need to keep doing the routine going. Don't cave in and play with her, just plod along and put up with the whining and yelping. EVENTUALLY she'll start sleeping again. Having said that, 8.30pm does seem early to me. Perhaps that's just us — we don't go to bed until midnight so that's the routine Martha is in. But, depending when the morning starts, it might be a long time to be crated? How old is she, by the way? Could she be teething? I'm not a big believer in the power of aromatherapy, but given her behaviour changed when the aromatherapy stopped I'd be starting it again. Dogs are very sensitive to smells, so it may even be the absense of a strong smell that she's very used to that's keeping her up. One last suggestion — ear plugs! Good luck & hope you get some sleep tonight! Edited to add: Just looked at some of your old posts and see Daisy is an Australian Cattle Dog. Um, can we see pictures? Cattle Dogs make the cutest puppies!

Maybe you could say that the boys can get a puppy when they turn 11. So you get one puppy now, one puppy when the nine-year-old turns eleven in two years. I hope you don't feel depressed with all this advice, but it's better that you hear it now. You are actually VERY lucky to have breeders giving you advice. My puppy was a gift, like yours will be for your sons, and I wish my friends had done a bit of research before they bought Martha, cause they did many things wrong, including buying from a backyard breeder who let the pups go too early and could not identify the puppy's sex! Getting a puppy from a less-than-worthy breeder has really politicised me. If there's a risk you may feel the same way, you want to feel that BEFORE you get the puppies, not after. If your breeder hasn't expressed any disquiet about handing over two pups, you may want to check his or her credentials. Remember, with Labradors puppyhoood lasts until around two. A couple of weeks ago someone told me this old aphorism: Labradors are such great dogs to make up the fact you didn't kill them when they were puppies. Martha is the biggest and boofiest at puppy school. (She's also... ahem... the cleverest. Well, at least in my estimation.) Two like her? It would be more than I can handle, even working from home. Please let us know what you're thinking. If you're really committed to buying two then obviously the advice will change.

Hi there. I have one lab puppy and she's handful enough. I'll leave others to advise on the one pup/two pup dilemma — I didn't know that about rough-housing and growing bones, although it does makes sense. That said, I'm sure getting two puppies isn't unprecedented. But I will say that puppies should not be left outside when they're young. (How old will they be, by the way?) I keep Martha in the bathroom, which has a very cosy den-like bed (not a crate, but I think if I'd discovered this website BEFORE I got her I would have started with a crate) and is completely puppy-proofed. She is in safely tucked away in there WHENEVER I cannot directly supervise her, and I intend to keep it that way until she's old enough to date! It sounds like they will only be alone from 8.30am-ish to 2pm — is that right? That's five and a half hours — longer than a puppy can hold their bladder. Crate trainers would be able to help you with how that would work with a crate, but in the bathroom you can create a pad or paper "bathroom" on the opposite side of the room from the crate or bed. Is there any way you or anyone else could stay home for the first week or so? A lot of people schedule holidays when they get their new puppy. Possible? I work from home so this was never a problem for me. To be honest, I don't know how others manage. I know it's daunting, but don't let it put you off. You just need to research and plan plan plan. Best of luck and keep us informed.

Thanks all. Brilliant advice. I'm going to switch to The Levels way of things. And not worry so much. DeltaCharlie, you're right about the couch. I am very mindful not to let her jump up or down off the furniture. The cue "down" is for when she jumps up and puts her front paws on me or the couch or the coffee table, which she's always trying to do to get her nose into whatever's there (such as my dinner) or for me to pick her up and plonk her on the couch. But she's not allowed to jump at all.

Hi Raeviel, That would be great! She's still got another two weeks before her shots, but I will PM you after then so we can go for a walk. I'm actually in Clifton Hill, very near Dight Falls, where Merri Creek and the Yarra meet, so Nicholson St, for example, is a bit of a hike for her at this stage. But I would love to meet up down the track so that they can socialise together. Martha doesn't know any other puppies except puppy school puppies. Thanks for asking! As for the rest of you, you're all bloody brilliant. I've now entirely changed my mind about how to proceed with outings once she's had her shots. Thanks for this wealth of infomation — I'm taking everything on board. Oh, and one more thing, re yelping when she bites, I persisted with this far longer than I should have when it was clearly not working. Martha thinks the yelping is an incitement to bite harder! I'm going to persevere with stopping all play completely when she bites, and will let you know how we progress.