I got god, sorry a Dog.
Aug 22nd 2010, 11:04 am
#1
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I got god, sorry a Dog.
Today we decided that we will have a dog. Friends are breeders of labradors and we are taking Tamati this coming thursday. He is a brown one and it is as much for the kids as the family as a whole. I have pretty much always been agin having a dog for maniflod reasons, yet there is part of me that has always thought ' what a nice idea....so long as you choose the right breed ' Hopefully this dog is right. The breeders have seen our garden and are satisfied that both our garden and the general areas are suitable for their dog. I am very nervous about the new family member
. I hope we will be best friends. I do not work and thus will be able to give the boy a stable upbringing with plenty of attention.
. I hope we will be best friends. I do not work and thus will be able to give the boy a stable upbringing with plenty of attention.
Aug 22nd 2010, 12:01 pm
#2
Joined: Aug 2006
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Sweet, good luck with it, can't you change his name to Elvis?
Aug 22nd 2010, 8:08 pm
#3
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Lab pups are a bit of work 
good luck with him
Neil
good luck with himNeil
Aug 22nd 2010, 8:21 pm
#4
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Your life will never be the same again - but it will be a better one!
We got both our dogs as puppies - the wee one is 16 months old and still a big puppy.
Gundogs never really grow up, they just learn to harness their enthusiasm for life aged about 3.
Happy to give you the benefit of my puppy experience any time. It's a mad time.
We got both our dogs as puppies - the wee one is 16 months old and still a big puppy.
Gundogs never really grow up, they just learn to harness their enthusiasm for life aged about 3.
Happy to give you the benefit of my puppy experience any time. It's a mad time.
Aug 22nd 2010, 9:36 pm
#5
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Wow that's topical 
Make sure you train him/her not to jump up on me with muddy paws. I don't like it!
WP
Make sure you train him/her not to jump up on me with muddy paws. I don't like it!
WP
Aug 22nd 2010, 11:07 pm
#6
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
. Horrible habit. He will be well loved and well disciplined. It was a moment of madness. Kate and the kids X 3 have always wanted a dog..life is too short not to have one. Now I will have some company for the school drop when the kids are not tin the car!!!!!!!
Aug 22nd 2010, 11:10 pm
#7
Joined: Oct 2009
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Ah how nice! Look forward to some pics of the lil fella!
Aug 22nd 2010, 11:48 pm
#8
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Ha Ha, you're getting yourself a chewing machine
Make sure he has lots of his own toys to chew on, our's would eat everything in sight for the first couple of years, shoes, slippers chair legs, cables, Christmas tree & lights,wooden pole holding up the Breakfast Bar, even her own plastic bed
& that was with taking her training from the first day!!!
When she was a year old we left her with the In-Laws for a week while we went on our Honeymoon. When we got back we were presented with a box of destroyed items including a brand new pair of shoes, a video tape & a telephone
She did stop, but it did take 2 years, apart from her bed which she carried on eating. It was replaced after she'd eaten about half of it.
She was a wonderful dog though & gave us 14 great years.
P.S. watch out for those razor sharp teeth, especially with little hands, my skin was broken a few times in the first year!! Also something our's & our friends Labs were buggers for doing was biting clean through sticks, lodging the remaining part between their back teeth. most times we could yank it out, but we did have a couple of vet visits!! None of our other dogs have ever done that.
Make sure he has lots of his own toys to chew on, our's would eat everything in sight for the first couple of years, shoes, slippers chair legs, cables, Christmas tree & lights,wooden pole holding up the Breakfast Bar, even her own plastic bed
& that was with taking her training from the first day!!!When she was a year old we left her with the In-Laws for a week while we went on our Honeymoon. When we got back we were presented with a box of destroyed items including a brand new pair of shoes, a video tape & a telephone
She did stop, but it did take 2 years, apart from her bed which she carried on eating. It was replaced after she'd eaten about half of it.
She was a wonderful dog though & gave us 14 great years.
P.S. watch out for those razor sharp teeth, especially with little hands, my skin was broken a few times in the first year!! Also something our's & our friends Labs were buggers for doing was biting clean through sticks, lodging the remaining part between their back teeth. most times we could yank it out, but we did have a couple of vet visits!! None of our other dogs have ever done that.
Aug 22nd 2010, 11:57 pm
#9
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Aug 23rd 2010, 12:41 am
#10
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Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Ha Ha, you're getting yourself a chewing machine
Make sure he has lots of his own toys to chew on, our's would eat everything in sight for the first couple of years, shoes, slippers chair legs, cables, Christmas tree & lights,wooden pole holding up the Breakfast Bar, even her own plastic bed & that was with taking her training from the first day!!!
When she was a year old we left her with the In-Laws for a week while we went on our Honeymoon. When we got back we were presented with a box of destroyed items including a brand new pair of shoes, a video tape & a telephone
She did stop, but it did take 2 years, apart from her bed which she carried on eating. It was replaced after she'd eaten about half of it.
She was a wonderful dog though & gave us 14 great years.
P.S. watch out for those razor sharp teeth, especially with little hands, my skin was broken a few times in the first year!! Also something our's & our friends Labs were buggers for doing was biting clean through sticks, lodging the remaining part between their back teeth. most times we could yank it out, but we did have a couple of vet visits!! None of our other dogs have ever done that.
Make sure he has lots of his own toys to chew on, our's would eat everything in sight for the first couple of years, shoes, slippers chair legs, cables, Christmas tree & lights,wooden pole holding up the Breakfast Bar, even her own plastic bed
& that was with taking her training from the first day!!!When she was a year old we left her with the In-Laws for a week while we went on our Honeymoon. When we got back we were presented with a box of destroyed items including a brand new pair of shoes, a video tape & a telephone
She did stop, but it did take 2 years, apart from her bed which she carried on eating. It was replaced after she'd eaten about half of it.
She was a wonderful dog though & gave us 14 great years.
P.S. watch out for those razor sharp teeth, especially with little hands, my skin was broken a few times in the first year!! Also something our's & our friends Labs were buggers for doing was biting clean through sticks, lodging the remaining part between their back teeth. most times we could yank it out, but we did have a couple of vet visits!! None of our other dogs have ever done that.
Aug 23rd 2010, 2:09 am
#14
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Location: Wellington
Posts: 217
Re: I got god, sorry a Dog.
Who said that money doesn't smell? Our younger dog could certainly smell money as a puppy: she ate my brand new hiking boots even though the cupboard was full of older shoes as well. Same happened with my brand new high heels, the digital piano's headset and various other items that were not old or cheap to replace...
She also ate a whole huge (at least 35 cm in diameter) rhubarb pie we had left unguarded for less than half an hour when she was 5,5 months old. She looked sick and her sides were bulging as if she was about to give birth to a litter of ten puppies. She obviously felt quite queasy and then puked several times. I told her that it was a just punishment for stealing.
The craziest thing she did happened after a bbq party when she was about 6 months old. Because we have pets, I always buy bag-in-a-box wines for outdoor parties because I don't want to risk getting any broken glass in the garden. One of the 3 l red wine boxes was still at least half full (i.e. contained at least 2 bottles' worth of wine), and I put it on a shelf in the kitchen. The shelf was a tall one where I kept our cookery books, and I tucked the box between the books, at least 1,2 m from the floor. When I got home from work about two days after the party, I didn't notice anything at first and took the dogs for their afternoon walk.
When we came back from the walk and I went to the living room, I just froze and stared at the sight: for some god-unknown reason the puppy had decided to steal the half-full wine box (I still don't know how she did that), and had dragged it to the living room and onto the almost brand-new cream-cloured wool rug, and had proceeded to destroy the box on the rug. The rug looked like it had a psychedelic cream and purple batik pattern. Parts of it were absolutely soaked with red wine. The puppy was clearly proud of her achievements and the older dog came to me looking worried and wagging his tail in a "you know Mum it wasn't me" -kind of way. I just stood there and stared at the bizarre artwork done by a proud 6-month old border collie. Then I thought "SALT!", ran to the kitchen and emptied the cupboards of all the salt we had in the house: table salt, gourmet salt, coarse sea salt, smoked sea salt, whatever we had, and spread the salt all over the rug. I checked the puppy's mouth and the remains of the box to make sure she hadn't drunk any of the wine as it would have been dangerous, but luckily she had only been interested in the cardboard box and not the wine bag inside or the liquid leaking from it.
I was so sure that the 2,4 x 2 m rug was ruined even though the salt sucked some of the wine out of the rug -it still looked as if had been used on the floor of a slaughterhouse. When hubby got home a bit later, he immediately took the rug to a professional dry cleaners who were still open. The best bit was that the owner of the dry cleaners had a border collie and she gave us 25% sympathy discount! And they performed a miracle too: they got the rug so clean, that unless you know where to look for very, very light stains, you'd never believe it was the same rug -because the rug was almost new and had not been washed yet, most of the lanolin of the wool was still left in the fibres and that made all the difference in getting the stains out.
Our older dog was never like that, and barely destroyed anything. With both dogs we noticed that when they start dropping their puppy teeth and have really itchy gums and want to chew and chew on anything, a raw carrot directly from the fridge works wonders. It's cool and chewable, and seemed to ease the itching pretty well.
Good luck, Genesis
She also ate a whole huge (at least 35 cm in diameter) rhubarb pie we had left unguarded for less than half an hour when she was 5,5 months old. She looked sick and her sides were bulging as if she was about to give birth to a litter of ten puppies. She obviously felt quite queasy and then puked several times. I told her that it was a just punishment for stealing.
The craziest thing she did happened after a bbq party when she was about 6 months old. Because we have pets, I always buy bag-in-a-box wines for outdoor parties because I don't want to risk getting any broken glass in the garden. One of the 3 l red wine boxes was still at least half full (i.e. contained at least 2 bottles' worth of wine), and I put it on a shelf in the kitchen. The shelf was a tall one where I kept our cookery books, and I tucked the box between the books, at least 1,2 m from the floor. When I got home from work about two days after the party, I didn't notice anything at first and took the dogs for their afternoon walk.
When we came back from the walk and I went to the living room, I just froze and stared at the sight: for some god-unknown reason the puppy had decided to steal the half-full wine box (I still don't know how she did that), and had dragged it to the living room and onto the almost brand-new cream-cloured wool rug, and had proceeded to destroy the box on the rug. The rug looked like it had a psychedelic cream and purple batik pattern. Parts of it were absolutely soaked with red wine. The puppy was clearly proud of her achievements and the older dog came to me looking worried and wagging his tail in a "you know Mum it wasn't me" -kind of way. I just stood there and stared at the bizarre artwork done by a proud 6-month old border collie. Then I thought "SALT!", ran to the kitchen and emptied the cupboards of all the salt we had in the house: table salt, gourmet salt, coarse sea salt, smoked sea salt, whatever we had, and spread the salt all over the rug. I checked the puppy's mouth and the remains of the box to make sure she hadn't drunk any of the wine as it would have been dangerous, but luckily she had only been interested in the cardboard box and not the wine bag inside or the liquid leaking from it.
I was so sure that the 2,4 x 2 m rug was ruined even though the salt sucked some of the wine out of the rug -it still looked as if had been used on the floor of a slaughterhouse. When hubby got home a bit later, he immediately took the rug to a professional dry cleaners who were still open. The best bit was that the owner of the dry cleaners had a border collie and she gave us 25% sympathy discount!
And they performed a miracle too: they got the rug so clean, that unless you know where to look for very, very light stains, you'd never believe it was the same rug -because the rug was almost new and had not been washed yet, most of the lanolin of the wool was still left in the fibres and that made all the difference in getting the stains out. Our older dog was never like that, and barely destroyed anything. With both dogs we noticed that when they start dropping their puppy teeth and have really itchy gums and want to chew and chew on anything, a raw carrot directly from the fridge works wonders. It's cool and chewable, and seemed to ease the itching pretty well.
Good luck, Genesis