Labrador Book

Yesterday, I checked out a book about labs from the library to help me learn more about Hershey. I learned alot, such as "Labs are high energy dogs... a two to three mile walk cannot be considered adequate exercise."
A three mile walk is not enough?
"Labs are slow to mature... labs are puppies for a long time and are not mentally mature until 3 or 4 years of age."
So he's going to act like this for 4 years?
"Labs are known to chew destructively."
What an understatement! The other day he chewed through a pack of organic energy drinks- cans and all. We just had to hope it didn't shred apart his insides.
With all of this information, it's hard to believe that they are the most popular dogs in the country for pets! I guess we're all just suckers because they're cute and lovable.
The book also came with a training DVD, so maybe we can curb some of those bad habits!

I can never get a picture of both dogs together because they are always running around and playing with each other and I'm not fast enough, even with my cool camera. But here we go!
After 50 different pictures of the backs of their heads I finally got one with both dogs looking.

Yucky Ears

Hershey is getting really big. I hope he's almost done growing. He'll be 1 year old in November. He really needs to learn how strong he is. He'll jump up on you like he expects you to pick him up and cradle him like a baby, not realizing he's actually knocking you over instead.

He had a really gross problen with his ears recently. Each ear had a huge open sore. It looked like it would almost go all the way through to the other side and was always bright red with fresh blood. So I would clean it and put ointment on it regularly and it wouldn't heal. So I thought that maybe Palin was licking it too much because I saw her do that sometimes. So I separated them but still had no luck.

I als noticed there seemed to be alot of flies around. But since it's hot and our yard has chickens and dog poop, I thought some fly traps would do the trick.

Anyways, when I finally put everything together, I realized the flies were eating at his sores! Ewwww! So I had to buy a fly spray to put on the dogs. His ears started to heal in just a couple days which was great news. But still really gross.

You can see the top of his right ear still is missing some hair in the second picture.

Doggie Boxers?

Hershey really needs to be neutered soon. He's about 7 months now. The other day, he was laying on the floor on his back with all four legs in the air. All nice and cozy. My 5 year old sees him and says, "Eeeew, Hershey needs some underwear!" I must admit, I quite agreed!

The Last Straw

Today, Keith discovered yet another new plant destroyed. The dogs chewed up or dug up dozens of plants at this point. Not to mention the constant, daily digging of holes in the grass, dirt, and bark. Plus, their urine has caused many brown spots in the lawn. Well, they've finally pushed the limit. Keith left the house with a crazed look in his eye, and laughing like a maniac. Then, he came home and put up an electric fence!