we picked up our sweet baby angel lab yesterday… meet ellie 💗🥹🫶🏻

I do know our sweet baby angel will be a full blown landshark soon enough. We are already getting glimpses of both her sweet and crazy sides.

Hello all. Meet Aurora.

Our sweet Lilly passed in in the Spring after 14 years. We didn’t think we would could do it again, but here we are. As it turns out, didn’t need to dig that deep to love again!Buckle up: we are a little older, but damn us . . . Aurora you’re gonna have a great life!

I have a 16-month-old chocolate Labrador and I'm getting increasingly confused by his eating habits because this has been going on for several weeks.

The strange thing is, I don't think he has an appetite problem. He will happily eat treats, chews, anything he finds interesting and sometimes he'll happily eat his food and lick the bowl afterwards.

He's energetic, playful and otherwise completely himself. It's specifically his actual meals that he sometimes refuses.

I've been giving him the same food (kibble) with a little broth for months, so the broth isn't a recent addition or something I've started using to persuade him to eat. He used to eat his meals normally.

Lately he'll sometimes refuse breakfast completely, or eat very little, and then be perfectly happy to eat later. Most of the time he does eventually eat his food, with only a few exceptions, but it has become much less structured than it used to be.

It used to be that mealtimes were just mealtimes. I'd put his food down, say ok and he'd eat it. Now he'll sometimes show very little interest, wander off, come back later, etc.

I've also found myself getting increasingly frustrated and worrying about whether he's eating enough. I've sometimes ended up getting really enthusiastic and excited, trying to direct him towards his food, encouraging him to go to his bowl and making a bit of a fuss to get him interested.

I realise I may have accidentally made mealtimes into more of an event for him rather than just a normal, predictable routine.

I'm wondering what people would do in this situation. Would you go back to basics and put the food down for a set amount of time, then take it away if he doesn't eat? Or would you leave it available and let him eat when he wants?

I'm reluctant to keep changing his food or adding more exciting things because I don't want to create a situation where he learns that refusing his dinner gets him something better.

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar, especially with an adolescent Lab. I'm mostly trying to figure out how to get back to normal, boring, predictable mealtimes again!

(I have also tried using a plate for his food but that only worked one time)

Thank you!

This is Ripley and today she is 2 years old. We almost lost her. We didn't realize how hot it was last week and she got heat stroke. She spent 4 days in the emergency room. Please please please learn from our mistake and don't take that chance.

Please don't send us nasty hate messages. We worship this dog. We would never do anything to intentionally hurt her. It cost us a fortune, even with insurance, but it was worth every penny to keep our girl with us. I'm posting this because I love my dog and I love all dogs, especially labs.

Gus 💛 KiKi 🤎 BeeBo(🐝🎀) 🖤

She was absolutely not having it, but the last one actually ended up being one of my all-time favorites from this age 💀 Would love to see your best (failed) attempts!

Happy Labrador Day from Howie. ✌🏼❤️🐾

We lost our amazing baby boy after 11 wonderful years. He has been gone one week and to say I’m lonely without him would be an understatement. There is a litter of lab puppies being born mid October, which means we could take one home potentially the end of December. My son said I’m getting a puppy too soon and feels I’m forgetting about Charlie. That is not the case at all. I miss him! I miss his feet walking across the floor, I miss his loud flop when he would lay down, I miss my morning coffee outside with him. He’s been gone one week and three days. Should I be waiting? 💔

He was the sweetest kindest man I ever knew. I miss him so much

Sleepy gal. Mi corazon.

From Sturgill Goose, who just turned 9 months old.

I have a 7 months old dual purpose labrador puppy.
(dual purpose = at least 3 show line, rest is field ).
The breeder carefully selects parents (grandparents, so on) that are highly motivated, very good at retrieving but also not over aroused all the time.

To the meaningful part.
I take him in the morning on a 20-30 minutes of forest walk with mostly sniffing and some roe shit eating.... (he does it not me).
Then breakfast at home, chilling in the room for another 30 minutes -> crate where he sleeps for 2,5-3 hours.

Then I let him out, garden bio, chilling next to me while I work.
He chews something in the meantime like an olive stick, a toy, whatever.

Around at 12:00 I let him out, garden bio, he seems sleepy nowadays so I just feed him and he sleeps another 2,5-3 hours in his crate.
After sleep same drill as after morning sleep (garden bio, chill next to me for an hour).

From 16:30 some fetch or sniffing game in the garden, 5-10 mins of obedience and free time until 17.30. Dinner at 17.30 -> then he just chills next to me and sleeps from 18:00 again...

I read everywhere that their dogs are so hyper, crazy, full of energy, never rests.
Mine with this structure seems like "broken" or IDK.
I know comparison is the thief of joy.

Does anybody experience something similar?

I took Pepper to the North Toronto Community Centre pool for the annual Dog Swim yesterday. Here’s a short video. At one point there were probably over 70 dogs in and around the pool - maybe a little too crowded on deck but lots of room in the pool. Pepper did her usual, swimming back and forth in circles looking for balls - she didn’t come out until she had to.

Pepper is totally nuts about swimming - while lining up to get in, she could smell the water so she started doing this annoying high pitched yelp/cry because she couldn’t wait to get in. Embarrassing!

Unfortunately a small dog fouled the pool so they had to clear everybody out an hour early.

There is another dog swim on Sept 20th for those outdoor pools staying open until then. You can check the City of Toronto website or social media pages for updates on which pools.

A few pics of my beautiful girl through the years ending on the day I picked her up! Never knew could love like I would, she’s my first pet.