I was at a friends house yesterday practicing for an open stage event on Saturday, when her dog came up and started licking the spit out of the bottom of my low A whistle as I was playing it.
I just about lost it. I thought I’d be polite and not say a word.
I like dogs, but what is it about the Lab breed?
This reminds me of another story about another Lab. If you will allow me to stray more off topic.
I teach out-door education at a camp. The lesson I was teaching was Aquatic Safari. The last group of students that I was leading caught all sorts of interesting creatures and wanted to share their catch with the rest of the students.
So we placed them in a big bowl and carefuly carried our find back to the lodge. It was lunch time so the students left the bowl on the porch to eat first before show and tell.
I stepped outside to check in on the critters when I noticed the camp dog, which was a Lab consuming the contents of the bowl. I mean there were tadpoles, crawdads, salamanders, and few insect larvas in the
bowl. All that was left was one huge crainfly larva.
Ever since that day… I often wondered what else this breed of dog will eat.
Hopefully not whistles!
Dogs will eat anything. Bugs, rotting food, cat poop (I’ve seen it. Don’t ask), anything.
I was watching one of those veterinary programs on Animal Planet one day, and they were working on a dog that had somehow swallowed a huge kitchen knife!
Dogs aren’t the most intelligent creatures when it comes to what they put in their stomachs…
I have a dog. And the only really disgusting thing that she has done that really turned my stomach was the day my son was sitting on the potty chair and deposited a… well #2.
He proudly got up and went into the other room to tell his daddy. Upon entering the restroom, IT WAS GONE!!!.
I think I am more of a cat person.
Now a cat would of done one of two things. Walked away or tried to bury it.
I’m a complete and total Lab person myself. As far as I can tell, Labs love life more than any other living thing I’ve met – and it’s contagious. They’re like big, happy kids, though – if they see something they want, they will definitely try for it. Training class is recommended .
That said, my Lab never chomped up anything (other than sticks, which I could never convince her were not cookies) that she wasn’t supposed to have. My German Shepherd, on the other hand, took hot food off the grill and once climbed up on the stove to get meat that was thawing there. But she was a delight, too. You just had to watch her around meat.
What did you expect? Labs are three things: sweet, dumb and destructive. I mostly raise terriers, but I always have a lab around because, frankly, there is no more loving animal, two or four legged, on earth. They’re retrieving machines. They’ll chase a ball or stick until they literally fall over from exhaustion. But for anything else, they don’t begin to develop a functional brain until at least age 4. A six week old terrier puppy is smarter than the brightest lab. My Daisy is also destructive when bored. She’s destroyed several sofa cushions, not to mention her own toys when they’re left in her reach with no supervision. I’m obviously a dog person - no matter what the indiscretion (not involving my whistles, of course), I just shrug and clean it up. What’d be the point of punishing them for something they don’t even remember doing.
In obedience classes we teach beginners that praise or correction must be instant. One second late might as well be a year as far as the dog correlating the response to a previous action. For some breeds that may be exaggeration - but for labs and several others I could name its dead on.
Don’t try to understand a lab. Just take it for what it is, accept and give love and go on.
Ill never understand why dogs like to roll on top of dead things that really stink, but they sure do. I think its unfair to target Labs, tho, there’s just a lot more of em around.
I always thought Irish setters were the dum-dums of all time and its my observation that at least half of all em were born dead by the road.
At least thats how it looked when people used to own em around here. i havent seen an Irish setter in years so the other half of em must have all died or something.
Oh, now, I don’t think Labs are as dumb as many people I’ve met along the way . Mine (lab, not person) used to meet me at the door with my slippers. When she decided she liked the person I would later settle down with, she started meeting her at the door with her slippers, too. And she always got the right ones!
Then again, she was from very bright stock. Other pups from the same parents went on to be service dogs, for the blind.
I think the training classes are for the people, not the dogs .
Ya know, Raindog, I am sitting by NOT clicking that link. Maybe Ill wait until morning. Nothing will surprise me but I dont have to see it to believe it!
While helping our dalmatian deliver her first litter of 11 puppies in our garage I was rather put off by the fact that she would eat the afterbirth from each and every baby as well as most of the umbilical cord that I would hold for her (so she wouldn’t chew too close to the stomach). After a while she left the garage went out in the side yard and barfed everything up. After “recomsuming” the entire mess she came back in to finish delivery.
After that day I’ve never let a dog lick me in the face again!
Well, they actually have an excuse for eating the afterbirth (which most mammals, even herbivores, do), as the scent of it could attract preditors that could kill the mother and her offspring while they’re weakend from the birthing.
Of course, there is no excuse for eating cat poop…
My aunt and uncle have a black lab that has been known to eat barbies. But the absolute most stupid dog I have ever seen was a friens of the family’s black lab-rottweiler (sp?) mix. This dog would eat anything. If you took a stroll through the back yard you might find some uh, well some plastic bags interspersed throughout…
Personally, my family has a Pembroke Welsh corgi. Oh man, does that dog LOVE food. He would die from overeating. He will eat just about anything. We have a cat affectionately named Spew and, needless to say, when she performs her namesake as she so often does, the next thing you are most likely to hear is the jingle of dog tags and feet running as fast as they can to their goal…
Walden - I’m surprised that poodle made it out of the Philippines alive. My Filipino stepmother-in-law (don’t ask) told us that they ate dogs there. She was eyeballing my poor lab at the time.
Speaking of which, my beloved lab, Gidget, will be turning 16 in a couple of weeks. She can’t hear any more, and doesn’t see very well. It takes her a good 15 or 20 minutes to get out of bed in the morning because she’s so stiff. But whenever one of the cats poops the litter pan, she’s up and in there like a shot out of a gun! She’s also eaten toddler poop, her own poop, hairballs, cat vomit, kid vomit, her own vomit, tinsel from the Christmas tree, my brother’s girlfriend’s shoe, a couch cushion, a roll of aluminum foil and a roll of waxed paper (on the same day).
I’d swear she’s a dumb as a box of rocks and as clumsy as an ox, but somehow she has never knocked over a kid, even when they were learning to walk, and she has never growled, snapped or even barked in anger or frustration no matter how much they pulled her ears or fur or tail. She has more patience for the kids than I do.
I know that her days left with us are few, and despite all her little quirks, I’ll miss her like hell when she’s gone. I’m starting to get a little misty just thinking about it.
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