KristenLovesLabs

You're nicer than me My dog isn't allowed on the furniture. If he was, I'd have yellow hair on everything, damn labradors

My sincerest sympathy for you and yours. What a terrible tragedy. My thoughts are with you and your family in this difficult time.

Those issues you mentioned are real, but not Cesar Millan's problem. Any dog training tv show is going to show a side of dog training that appears much easier than it really is. Not only are they done by experienced and confident dog trainers, but as you mentioned, what has ended up on the cutting room floor? If people are stupid enough to act like Cesar Millan does when training their dog, when he states over and over again "Please do not try this without consulting a trained professional" then I fail to see how he's at fault for other peoples idiocy. I love Cesar Millan, I think he's a great dog lover and a great dog trainer, but his show is for entertainment purposes only, it's on the tv. But then I guess that's why infomercials are so popular, because people will believe anything they see on the idiot box. At the very least, Cesar tells people to walk their dogs twice a day, and if everyone did that, there'd be a lot less dogs in shelters, a lot less boredom and happier dogs all around.

Does it come with black Kongs? If it doesn't, then it's no good for my lab, he'd shred them

I personally think you need to take what he says, and use what suits you. There have certainly been things I've used that I've learnt from him that have made a difference. But I always remember I'm not a professional dog trainer, so I'm not going to go in and do the things he does. I actually like Cesar, he loves his dogs, surely everyone in the world could learn at least that from him.

Kaemasu (pronounced Kay-e-mas) means new beginning in Japanese

Best of luck to your family and your beautiful dog Halle. I'm scared I'll one day have to go through this and my thoughts are with you.

Thank you I do love him so already <3

I just adopted a 9 year old lab, changed his name and he was coming to it within 3 hours.

Who are you kidding, you love that chocolate lab, no matter what she does

I'll definitely be going with Henry, anything to give him some joy

Well we just had the best fun down the river. Much swimming and ball chasing for Henry. My daughter took some pics so if we get some good ones I'll upload them So glad I live by the water now I see how much he loves it.

Haha, that'd be nice, then maybe we could convince them to let us bring our Labs to work

Ahh how glorious it is to be paid to sit on the internet

I'm so glad I have a job where I can sit on forums all day I'll head over to the lab forum now.

Yup, I'll go to Cloverdale and I'll come say hi on Sunday. I'd love him to do agility, but we both need to get a lot fitter for that

That is so sad ;) I wish I could go home to check on Henry, I just want to make sure he's ok. I'm sure he's sound asleep I don't have many pictures of him yet, plan on taking my good camera down to the dog beach tonight. Hopefully we'll get some great action shots I have no idea how he compares to the lab standards, but I think he's beautiful <3

Aww, you're too sweet I attached a pic of him, in my last post. He's such a beautiful dog and it saddens me that he's spent most of his life left in the backyard ignored

Thanks for the info I've emailed Cloverdale Canine Companions as they are very close. Maybe I will come on Sunday, as long as nobody laughs at my poor little fatty cakes Edit to show a picture of my boy eating his icy treat this morning in 3.2 seconds. I'm quite worried about his weight, but hopefully with a new diet and lots of exercise, both he and I will be fabulous in no time ;) Oh, he also has a weird growth on his right foot, as you can see in that picture, hopefully the vet will be able to sort that out too. It didn't seem to hurt him before, but last night he licked it a lot and made it bleed

I wish I could take him on lots of smaller walks, but I'm out of the house from 8am until 5.30pm during the week so it's a bit hard to be able to do that I will mash up some veges tonight, and maybe mix it with some roo meat for his Kong. I feed my cats roo meat, so it's easy to just steal some of theirs. Would it be worth me changing Henry to a diet of roo meat? We have a vet appointment tonight so I'll be getting some advice from them. I'm always a bit catious of food advice from vets, I have found that some foods they recommend are because they have deals with the supplier. I have no problem preparing my own food for Henry from scratch. I'm taking him to Northern Suburbs Dog Club which is I think about 40 minutes from me (I've only been in Perth a year and am still finding my way around). I'd happily leave Henry inside, but we have 2 cats, and polished wooden stairs, I'd hate to see him get excited and hurt himself on the stairs. The way my house is designed allows the cats to sit upstairs and look at him through the glass, down to the first floor, and he gets a bit silly when he sees them. Where do you get roo tails from?

Hi guys, Thanks so much for the warm welcome His name is Henry (we called him that and already he knows his name). They had a different name for him and I think he was ignored so much that he didn't really know it anyway. I love human names for dogs I've always wanted a lab, but I wanted to make sure I had the lifestyle and the devotion to doing it properly. I knew there was no point in getting one and being a couch potato. I used to dred walks, now I absolutely love them. I'm in Maylands, so right near the river. I walk down the end of my street and there it is . And Henry, being true to his breed sees the water amd wants to bound in. There are a lot of dogs down there running around and chasing balls etc, I'm not ready to let him off the leash yet, I'm not convinced I can control him off leash, so better to be safe than sorry. I will change from peanut butter as I know it isn't great for him when he's quite the fatty cakes. I'll give the pumpkin a try tonight. I think I'll get another Kong and fill that with pumpkin too and hide it, so he has one to start on when I leave and will find another at some point during the day. I have obedience on Sunday morning I have no idea if it's the right one for me to be going to, but I've tried to find some in my general area and haven't been able to. I will happily come and join in at some stage, I think it'd be great for Henry too.

Heya everyone, I'm brand new to the site and have just introduced a lab to our family (on Sunday afternoon). He's almost 5 and unfortunately hasn't had the kind of life a dog should have, but I'm hoping to change that. We're going to Obedience on Sunday morning, and I think I'll be taking him to tracking. I'd love to do agility with him, but he's quite overweight at the moment, so I'll have to work on that. It sounds like Perth has a pretty tight knit group of dog lovers, which is awesome. Has anyone got any ideas how to keep him occupied during the day while I'm at work? This morning I froze some low fat treats in a big block of ice thinking that would keep him busy for a little while, he ate it in about 45 seconds He has a Kong, which is filled with peanut butter, that I froze. I've also hidden some treats around the yard which I'm sure he'll find. I did get him some toys last night by they lasted about 5 minutes. I'm walking him about 8km a day, at a fairly slow pace while he gets used to exercise again (which I also need to do , we walk down by the river, 4km in the morning and 4km at night. I'm just really concerned that he'll be lonely and bored, and then become destructive and learn bad habits. Any advice would be much appreciated, I'm determined to be a good dog owner and give him an interesting life Thanks in advance. Kristen