Our Little Girl is Growing Up


 

Rich Dahl

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Many of you remember in December just before Christmas we received a black lab puppy that became part of our family. I just thought you might like to see the change now that Abby just turned 6 months old.
She is now taller than Whitney our Golden Retriever/Husky/Coyote mix.
Whitney and Abby are totally bonded and get along perfectly we couldn’t be more pleased.
We’ve had so many comments on how beautiful Abby looks, even our vet who used to judge AKC dog shows told us she was one of the nicest black labs he’s ever seen.
Although not to say it’s been an easy go with the pup. If she can get something into her mouth she will eat it. Including most of Barbs rose bushes thorns and all, any and all bushes and 90% of the drip system that waters them. Fortunately she hasn’t touched a thing in the house except her toys and playing with Whitney.
Finally got the yard Abby proofed and the drip system restored, even had to move the hundred pound cement bird bath which she knocked over twice.
She is totally fearless isn’t afraid of anything and shows no sign of settling down yet. She attacks the vacuum cleaner, my shop vac, loves to play in the water if I have the hose out. Keeps all the ducks out of the yard (we call all birds ducks) If I see a bird on the block wall getting ready to take a dump on one of my grills. I just say “get the ducks” and she goes flying outside and chases them off.
I’m guessing 6-12 more months of puppy antics before she starts to settle down some. Can’t wait to see what she gets into next.

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[/url]100_1949 by Richard Dahl, on Flickr[/IMG]

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Thanks for sharing Abby's misadventures and pics Rich, Jo and I both enjoyed your post.
She is a dandy!

PS, Happy belated Birthday!
 
Thanks for sharing Abby's misadventures and pics Rich, Jo and I both enjoyed your post.
She is a dandy!

PS, Happy belated Birthday!

Thanks Bob. Well it didn't take long for her to find something new to entertain herself.....lizards. It's warmed up here and the lizards are reappearing in the back yard again.
She's roaming the yard trying to catch them, she's pushed a couple of grills around trying to flush them out. Going to be an interesting summer.:rolleyes:
 
My sister has a Rotty who hasn't figured out that she's not a puppy any more. She's absolutely crazy but in a funny way. She's about 90# and thinks she's a lap dog. But she's about the happiest dog I have ever seen, just absolutely friendly and sweet tempered but "nuts" LOL. I'd rather deal with that than my other sister's dog I call "Cujo". He is totally unpredictable. One minute he's at your feet looking to be friendly and you can be petting him than you hear a growl and before you can move he's bitten you without any warning. I don't trust him and my grandson is terrified of him yet my brother in law denies his wonderful dog bit you even though you show him the teeth marks. Rather have a crazy Maddie than a Cujo
 
That's the way Whitney is she loves everyone from toddlers to old folks. She will play with any other dog and never starts a ruckus. It appears that that's the way Abby will be also.
A long time ago when we first got her we took her to the dog park with our 13 year old golden retriever. There was a wolf hybrid that started hassling our oldie golden. Whitney got between our golden and that wolf hybrid and gave it the prettiest coyote smile showing all those big teeth and the coyote eye stare. The wolf hybrid back off and went to harass somebody else. Very scary situation but it ended well. Although we never went back there again.
 
Every once in a while, I catch myself being nostalgic...I'll think about the old columnist Lewis Grizzard and his Lab...my first dog, a beautiful Black Lab...and I'll get to wanting one. It doesn't take long until I remember how much of a mess she was...chewing everything, bumping into things while playing, full on crazy pup. I'll never forget how hard her head was, even as a puppy. Every once in a while, she'd head butt me. My favorite story to tell about her is this:

The entire back of our house was glass. It had rectangle windows just above the baseboards that were probably a foot and a half high and probably 30 in. wide. Above those were big pane windows. She wasn't more than about 10-12 weeks at the time. But, she was wandering around being a puppy when she caught a glimpse of herself in one of the low windows. Stopped dead in her tracks and turned straight facing the window. Let out the cutest little growl, dropped her head down, and CRASH!!! She lunged head first at that puppy she saw in the glass. The glass shattered out all over the deck. She just sat down, tilted her head, then looked at me as if to say, "Dad, what happened to that other puppy?" She wimpered and the went back to her bone.

Once she grew up, she was the absolute best dog.
 
Cute story Dan, This isn't our first puppy we've had a couple of Golden Retriever puppy's over the years, you would think we would know better by now. We really wanted to find a rescue dog and we looked for two years and nothing just hit our hearts.
Whitney is a rescue from an Indian reservation in New Mexico, she was running wild with a litter of pups. It took the rescue organization months to catch her. You would think with the DNA of a coyote in her she would be a handful. She isn't, she as sweet as any dog we've ever had. We got her to be a companion to our 13 year old golden Raddy and she was so kind and gentle with her it was incredible to see it.
When Raddy passed we started a search to find a companion for Whitney and some how through the parents of a young couple down the street from us that raised Black Labs on their farm in Ohio we were given the opportunity of a life time. Because Barb and I became sort of foster parents to the couple and helped take care of their two Labs because they sometimes had to work long hours. Even had a sleepover with their two labs and Whitney when the kids had to spend a night in Phoenix. Their folks offered us a puppy as a payback they usually get $1000-1300 for their labs for $350 and they delivered her to our house from Ohio. How could we say no.
 
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I’m guessing 6-12 more months of puppy antics before she starts to settle down some.
yeah, right.... you know how they are... they may not destroy stuff after another 6 to 12 months, but their antics and giddiness will last their entire life...
Maddie is an old 12 years... tough to walk at times and sleeps much more now, but still has the playful puppy attitude everyday.

Thanks to you & Barb for being a great humans to those rescue dogs!

...and, love the "Abbywire"!
 
yeah, right.... you know how they are... they may not destroy stuff after another 6 to 12 months, but their antics and giddiness will last their entire life...
Maddie is an old 12 years... tough to walk at times and sleeps much more now, but still has the playful puppy attitude everyday.

Thanks to you & Barb for being a great humans to those rescue dogs!

...and, love the "Abbywire"!

Well we can hope Jim, but whatever Abby does there is no remorse on our side. She's a beautiful pup and is truly entertains us and her sidekick Whitney. Before we got Whitney are past five dogs were Golden Retriever rescues except one, also known as the "clowns of the dog world" so we are very used to the tricks that dogs can do. We wouldn't want it any other way.

Watching them play and charge through the house and yard just puts a big grin on my face. Abby is fearless and as tough as a rock with Whitney who out weighs Abby by about 60 pounds, but she has no trouble holding her own when they play.

They force me to take long walks with them to give them proper exercise and we have to socialize them with people and other dogs, which in turn makes me get exercise and out of the house.

She is learning the house rules and is a bundle of constant energy, are only real problem with her is leash walking. Even using an Easy Walk Harness she pulls like crazy and at six months old she is surprisingly strong. Barb can barley hold her back. I won't use a choke chain collar or a spike collar to much of a neck injury risk. When we get that resolved the rest will be easy.

Sorry to hear about Maddie, but she must have a lot of love and care to make it to twelve and I'm sure that's very true and to still have that puppy attitude is truly amazing.
 
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dogs are truly a blessing from God.... I've lived 51 years with dogs (7 great friends in total) and it will continue.
Cannot IMAGINE living without a dog now....
 
Wish I could get a dog. We love them (though there are some dog owners around me that I would truly like to send a hit man to) that aside I just love the critters BUT wife and I both have allergies to them (me not so bad) but her it's off the charts. If a dog so much as licks her hand she breaks out like the poster child for eczema medicine and nothing helps it
 
dogs are truly a blessing from God.... I've lived 51 years with dogs (7 great friends in total) and it will continue.
Cannot IMAGINE living without a dog now....

I'll second that Jim. We almost always have two pups around. There was a time when we only had one and when he passed I said enough I don't want to go through the pain of losing another one. That lasted about two weeks and there was another rescue golden in the Dahl family and shortly thereafter a second one.
Took me awhile to figure out what the Abbywire meant, but so far so good she hasn't penetrated the perimeter yet.:)
 
She is learning the house rules and is a bundle of constant energy, are only real problem with her is leash walking. Even using an Easy Walk Harness she pulls like crazy and at six months old she is surprisingly strong. Barb can barley hold her back. I won't use a choke chain collar or a spike collar to much of a neck injury risk. When we get that resolved the rest will be easy.

Rich, have you tried a "Gentle Leader"? When we got Cody (Rottie mix) we took him to obedience classes when he was 4 months old. You had to have a "Gentle Leader" for the dog before you could take the classes. They instruct you on proper fitting of the leader and explain how it works for the dog. They will not pull against the leash with the leader on...it's amazing how well they work. Here's a link to their web site if you want to see more about them: https://www.petsafe.net/gentleleader
 
Rich, have you tried a "Gentle Leader"? When we got Cody (Rottie mix) we took him to obedience classes when he was 4 months old. You had to have a "Gentle Leader" for the dog before you could take the classes. They instruct you on proper fitting of the leader and explain how it works for the dog. They will not pull against the leash with the leader on...it's amazing how well they work. Here's a link to their web site if you want to see more about them: https://www.petsafe.net/gentleleader

Thanks Mike, we borrowed one from some friends who have a lab also. Abby went goofy when we put it on her, i thought she was going to kill herself.
The class we are going to go to recommends the Easy Walk so we got one of those. Abby seems fine with it but we are going to wait till we get into the class to use it again to make sure we are using it properly. What we have right now is a harness that the leash attaches to the back of her neck not the front by her chest like the Easy Walk. I think on the gentle leader one the part that goes over her nose freaked her out.
 
Cody didn't like the nose part either Rich. The instructor told us to leave it on him all day so he gets used to it and that's where we failed. At 4 months old he would have gotten used to it had we followed instructions. If we stopped walking to talk to someone or window shop I'd start to walk away only to find Cody had taken his paw and pulled the part around his nose off! We sure miss that little stinker!
 
Abby is remarkably strong for a six month old pup and we have to use a harness of some type to keep her from hurting her neck until she learns to walk properly. It's a catch 22 with the harness as she can pull as hard as she wants with no ill effects on her. I swear my arms are 2 inches longer now.
Can't wait for this class to start.
 
We could never use a leash to collar setup with Brooke because the slightest tug would set off a coughing/gagging response that lasted for several minutes.
The harness, with a hook on the back, works great and really controls her pulls.
But at almost 10 the pulls are are not arm stretching. :)

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Abby is remarkably strong for a six month old pup and we have to use a harness of some type to keep her from hurting her neck until she learns to walk properly. It's a catch 22 with the harness as she can pull as hard as she wants with no ill effects on her. I swear my arms are 2 inches longer now.
Can't wait for this class to start.

I used a Herm Sprenger prong collar with Roxy the first few months, haven't used it in >3 years but her everyday collar is a martingale collar.

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I'd recommend watching a bunch of youtube videos before you try the herm sprenger collar.
 
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We could never use a leash to collar setup with Brooke because the slightest tug would set off a coughing/gagging response that lasted for several minutes.
The harness, with a hook on the back, works great and really controls her pulls.
But at almost 10 the pulls are are not arm stretching. :)

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We have the same issue with Abby, with a regular collar she would pull so hard she would star strangling herself and would go into a coughing fit. So we have a harness like Brooke's although she still pulls like a Budweiser Clydesdale.
The training one attaches at the front by her chest, will start using that one shortly when we get her into the obedience class.
This morning on our walk there was a ray of hope, she actually walked pretty good maybe there is light at the end of tunnel, more likely an oncoming train.
 

 

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