Thread: Please, need some advice and info on Labs fellas

The best dog I have every owned is my 6 year old chocolate lab. He's my buddy. To be honest, the reason I got the chocolate was because we had just built our house on 3 acres and well, the grass was a little scarse...

I think the males tend to be larger than the females. Mine is 95 pounds. The vet said they love to excercise as much as they love to eat. So, I walk him regularly and play fetch with him to keep him active. He absolutely loves it.

Here's a couple things to remember on top of the hip issue...large breed dogs who snarf their food sometimes will develop a condition where their stomach will flip. A dog handler friend of mine said I should elevate his food bowl to shoulder height so he doesn't ingest air with his food. I did and he has been fine. I'll echo the "two year puppy" comment made earlier. Keep them in chew toys....go ahead and invest a little more in Kong Toys, they can't obliviate them quite as quick as some of the cheapos.

My dog has a kennel in our garage that is his safe place and home base. He has a dog door in the garage door he can use to come and go. This works out really well. Our last inside dog had a bit of a nervous bladder (you learned to back up when ever he got excited, let's just say...), so we felt it the right thing to do to have a dog that didn't come in the house. You can leave the door open to the house and he'll simply sit there and wait for you to come out.

They are a very smart breed and I highly recommend them. He even learned how to bob for minnows one day when the fishing was really slow. I had to put the minnow bucket next to me to keep him out of the water. That dog loves to swim too.