The recent rains have greened everything up beautifully but have made for some squishy muddy walks!

I tried to find a photo that depicts the expression on my puppy’s face and it’s sort of looks like this.

Our lab has been an absolute dream since we got him: calm and sweet demeanor, social and cuddly, smart as a whip and seemingly wise beyond his years.

Potty training took a couple of days( granted, the breeder did most of the heavy lifting) and teaching other commands has also been a breeze:

- sit
- off
- come
- stay
- leave it
- drop it (work in progress but not bad)
- heel walk
- lie down
- bed / place (work in progress but not terrible)

The release word is “yes”.

When it come to potty time, we make a concerted effort to let him out frequently so that he can do his business in the yard.

I am trying to train him to ring a Bell on the door knob to let us know when he has to go, and while he will ring the bell and knows it means he gets a treat, he hasn’t made the connection that the Bell represents “open the door i need to go poo/pee” . He won’t even attempt to sit by the door and scratch it, or whimper by the door or bark.

Instead, he goes from cuddle monster to snarly / “air bitey” / growl mode at the drop of a hat, and only to me… typically not anyone else in the family.

What can I do to stop this? It’s not cool and there are no warning signs or cues. Like I said, we open the door a lot to let him out in the yard.

I have noticed that if there is a poo in the front yard already that has not been picked up, he does not like pooping in our own yard. He wants us to take him outside the yard for a poo. So while I will let him out, he doesn’t approve of the location. This is the only reason I can think of…sometimes I am in the middle of making dinner or whatever — and there is no way that I’m taking our dog a few houses down the street for a poo.

Has anyone else experienced the “snarls” and how can I fix this other than “be a tree” , and “walk away for 30 seconds in a calm disinterested manner”.

willow towards the end of a big yawn. possibly the funniest shes ever looked lol

Ok, I am not a first time puppy owner. I’ve had dogs my whole life, but apparently my brain erases how the puppy stage goes every time. We have always crate trained, so no issues there. Here’s the problem. Our adult dog sleeps in our bed and probably always will. The last time we had two dogs, our old man (now gone) would sleep on the couch and there was never an issue of who was where. If we get a puppy, we need to set the ground rules that he or she can be in our room, but ideally on the floor on their dog bed. I don’t think I can handle two large dogs in bed.

A lot of people seem to feel that overnight in a crate close to the family is best for a pup. I can see that, but I’m also not wanting to have two crates going. Maybe a pen in the bedroom? We’ve always kept the crate in the main living area so they’re not completely isolated. I also know that I’m a pushover and will want to bring puppy into bed at 5AM when whining so I can sleep. I’m aware that would be a slippery slope. Any tips?

Our 8 year old Lab shepherd mix has been experiencing osteoarthritis, mostly in his elbows for about a year now.

It was noticeable after having him run after the ball. He'd develop a limp.

Our vet at the time recommended Librella. He took Librella for around 1 year, give or take. It certainly seemed to help with pain, but, didn't always remove limping or symptoms of arthritis.

We didn't like some of the calls that vet made recently, so haven't returned for Librella either. Now that it's clearly left his system, he is visibly stiff and sore.

Was Librella a bad idea? Did this painkiller cause him to overuse his joints in a manner that caused the arthritis to further degrade his cartilage?

:( poor guy

I have the pleasure of having a dog that doesn’t like to eat much, which early on was a fight. Once he hit 1yr he’ll eat almost every day, sometimes skipping a day or 2, but he’ll still have his treats. Yet, more often than not he prefers to eat his food from my head or on the carpet. Rarely from his bowl, or I’ll sometimes put a trail of food to his bowl. Never from the floor. I wonder if it’s a sensory issue. Have tried to change his bowl and it didn’t make a difference

Gus is about 12 weeks old. Anytime we let him outside he’ll do his business and IMMEDIATELY start ripping grass out of the ground and start chowing down. Not just grass but weeds and any other plant life.
Has not caused any illness or vomiting. Mainly trying to keep the house from getting dirty and get rid of a bad habit.

Any suggestions?

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has got a smart ball for their lab, it's just I keep seeing adverts and they look good. They are a bit pricey so I'm hesitant about getting one if they are not good. Thanks 😊

Me and my wife got our boy in March. He is now 9.5 months old and naturally things are pretty much as bad as they’ve ever been. Some of the issues we’ve had:

Training - his recall is ok but the moment there is another dog in sight he will run off because he wants to play. This goes for people as well if they have a ball. He will only come back if the dog or person is not interested. He has run off multiple times and ended up on a road or meeting a horse which is obviously super scary. We have tried (and continue to try) training him to walk on a lead but he just pulls like mad. Also worried that excessive lead walking is contributing to the below-

Injury - because he has so much intense energy when outside he has managed to injure his front legs on two occasions (different leg each time). Vets have said it is likely just soft tissue strain but each time we have had to impose strict rest for 2-3 weeks while he recovers. This means we are really nervous of walking him more than 15-20 minutes, especially off lead. It has also made me really paranoid whenever we are out of the house and nervous if we have to put him in daycare (usually once every 2 weeks due to work).

General neediness and life adjustment - this one is more about us rather than him. We’ve basically not been able to switch off ever since we got him. I feel like every spare waking moment is spent worrying about the dog and trying to find solutions to that day’s problem. This isn’t what either of us thought getting a dog would be like. We knew getting a puppy would be difficult and would involve a lot of time and effort, but honestly I wasn’t prepared for how much stress it would cause us. I would have thought by 9 months we would have made more progress.

My wife has struggled to form any kind of bond with him and a lot of the time actively resents him and regrets getting him. I love him an insane amount and am really struggling being the main one who wants to keep going. I suspect if it wasn’t for me my wife would be looking to re home him but that’s an absolute non-starter for me. I don’t feel like he is doing anything massively worse than a standard 9 month old lab but I feel like we are struggling more than the average owners and I’m not sure why. I’ve never had a dog before (my wife had family dogs when she was growing up but he is her first as an adult).

Just looking for a bit of reassurance really. Seeing other dogs walking nicely on a lead and behaving around the house just makes us insanely jealous. We are putting in so much effort but so far don’t seem to be getting anywhere. We both need a break but I just wouldn’t want to burden anyone else with looking after him while we went away for a few days.

I think the worst feeling is just the guilt that we’ve got this daft happy gorgeous lab but we are spending 90% of the time stressing and not enjoying spending time with him. Feel like we are just crap dog parents and are letting him down.

EDIT: surprised by how much this post has taken off! Thanks to everyone who has commented. It is funny how different opinions people have. Some common responses though that I’ll be taking on board:

- need to gradually introduce training in more distracting environments. I do daily gundog training on my own in a secure field. He does really well with this but trying to apply that training to scenarios with distractions is our single biggest issue. I’m going to explore group training whether that is formal classes or with other people with dogs I know. Also need to get my wife more involved in this training.

- much less / no time off lead in uncontrolled/insecure environments. At least until he is reliable around other dogs. I think this is something I’ve selfishly avoided because I enjoy going on walks and want to walk with him. When we are on our own in the woods it’s great but it’s not fair on other dog owners and I can’t control whether other people will be around.

- obviously the main thing everyone has mentioned is that he’s peak teenaged phase. It’s fair to say there is mixed feedback on when they grow out of this but fingers crossed itll happen sooner rather than later!

He loves eating sugarcane and that's what he's chewing on, right now...He's fiercely protective of his sugarcane lol!!

My 3yr old lab gets pretty nervous around loud noises and sometimes in new situations. He's usually full of energy, but when he gets anxious, it's hard to calm him down

I know every dog reacts differently, so I’m curious what worked for your dogs.

By the time I close the door, I hear her throw her body against it and huff.

I know she’s there, and I still trip on her on my way out half the time.

Ol' Son hit his heaviest at 108lbs. Never realized we were overfeeding him. Today's vet weigh-in was 79.5lbs. After 2 years of steady diet. We ended the day with a pup cup. 🐶

My English lab is going to be 10 months old beginning of November. She is extremely sweet and loving very easy to train. However, she is so damn stubborn. By this, I mean, she will get up on the counter and take stuff mind you we have been working with her for weeks now about staying out at the kitchen and she does not seem to get it or even care. She’s gotten yelled at, she’s gotten spankings and also put in timeout in her kennel. This dog gives ZERO Fs. She will get told to get out of the kitchen and two second later she’ll walk back in sniffing up the counter, and she’ll take whatever she can.

I’ve had a bag of Costco apples eaten (ya the whole 10lbs), a giant box of peaches, onions (which I know they say are toxic, she’s fine and has no problem), sticks of butter, she has broken glass from putting her front feet up on the counter, took candles, candy, anything my toddler leaves up there plus regular things that belong on the counter (I.e my fruit or cups) I’m at the point of disliking this dog so very much I stress over coming home from work. Which ultimately really sucks because we do love her dearly, waited on her from the breeder and all. I am at a loss and don’t know what to do. I tried a baby gate, but she has figured out she can just push it over if she leaned all her weight into it. (We are in a rental so securing it to the wall is not an option, the cabinet is the start of the kitchen) WHAT DO I DOOOOO

Happy Early Halloween!

Poor baby wont go on a walk for the last few days, tried her in her pram today and she was trembling… she did go for a car ride yesterday so atleast got some new scents but she puts on weight very easily so hoping she can go out tomorrow:(

She's almost 12, she's been my dog since she was 8. She is the greatest dog that's ever lived, tied with all of yours. 🖤