Hi I have an eight week old male chocolate lab. We got him saturday and the first few days were a bit traumatic I felt like a bomb had dropped. I am pleased to say that we have all settled into a good routine now. Max is a little angel. He sleeps all night without even a squeak and with no mess on the floor. He eats all his meals (no suprise there) in a week he has only had 5 wee's in the house. All poos and a squillion wees in the garden. He loves my kids and all visitors. He knows his name and the commands "sit" "paw" and "come". My questions are as follows. Now I am not hysterical I have sensible questions! One is he has droopy bottom eyelids. The vet said he has a chance he will suffer from conjunctivitis. Does anyone have any experience of this? He also has a jaw problem. His bottom jaw is too short and his teeth dont meet? I am sorry if I have mentioned this before but I dont remember responses. The vet said we will have to wait and see.  My final question is whats the best time to get a male dog castrated. I want to do whats best for him and if doing it early prevents any problems creeping in then I will. My brother in laws dog used to mount everyone at the age of 8 months and I couldnt let him near the kids as he was a nightmare always mounting them. What age does this normally strat or is it all different?

One of the problems with judging a puppy is that it changes so much as it grows. Even the breed experts are, in the last analysis, left hoping that they have not made a mistake!! Heads change so much that we cannot choose what is right as much as what we hope will come right.

A Labrador should have a scissor bite. that is where the front of the lower teeth should contact the back of the upper teeth. A level bite, although permissible is not really right. The trouble is that the muzzle has a lot of growing to do and the growth is not even. The lower jaw actually grows more than the upper jaw so when I look for a puppy I look for a slight gap between the teeth to allow for that growth. So, unless your puppy has an excessive gap this should come right as the puppy grows.

Similarly the eyes could tighten as the head develops although I must say that there has been rather more trouble with loose eyes in Choc's than in the other colours. It is something to watch. If the worst comes to the worst it is a simple piece of corrective surgery (Although it could result in a ban on showing.) If conjunctivitis does occur then what I would do would very much depend on the age of the puppy, whether to treat myself or to see the vet.

Some dogs are more sexually active than others. Some never try to mount anything, others can really make a nuisance of themselves. Fingers crossed that you have no trouble on this front.

If you are going to castrate then I would not do this until well over a year old and by that time you may well find that there is no reason to do it at all.

Hope this helps and puts your mind at rest.

Regards, John

thanks for your advice john, I suppose I will just have to wait and see. I wonder why the droopy eyes is more prone to choccies??? Droopy eye syndrome surely cant be racist!! My vet said to have max done at 6months Would you not think this was a good idea then? Oh and I though of another question??!! Sorry! How much should max be sleeping? He is 9 weeks old tommorrow and we spend most of our time waiting for him to wake up so we can play with him. We do let him play alone when he is awake sometimes but he always seems pooped out!

sometimes labs have droopy eyelids an when heads mature they are ok not jusr chocs any colour

There does seem a spate in Choc's at the moment. I blame it on the popularity of the colour. So many people are trying to breed chocolates and in order to do this they are cutting the size of the gene pool to try to ensure the sire carries the chocolate gene. It only wants a choc stud dog to have loose eyes and to be well used and the problem is fixed in the type. As to the age for correcting this your vet should know best but personally I would go later rather than early. I would want to know that it was not going to correct it's self.

Sleep! As much as he wants to!! As he gets older you will find he needs less sleep but for the moment his life will revolve around eating and sleeping with a little play thrown in.

Best wishes, John

Hi Katy,
My chocolate girl has droppy bottom eyelids too (there's another droppy lidded choc lab owner that posts here as well - this has come up a few times). We took her into the vet for her six month check up the other day and mentioned it again to him but he wasn't concerned about it at all - it does tend to look better/worse at various times of day. The only problem is that they will be more prone to infections/conjunctivitus so you'll have that wonderful experience of putting in eye drops more often than other lab owners (and by god it's a struggle with Millie, I generally wrestle her to the floor to put them in!).

Enjoy your little bundle of energy!

Ali

You know what I always say Ali, "Everything's a training opportunity!" If you keep one of those eye dropper bottles, get some distilled water and fill the bottle. You can practise with this, putting drops in regularly then when it is really necessary it will be "Old hat" as far as your dogs concerned.

Best wishes, John

Hi Katy,

Yes my choccy lab also had droopy bottom eyelids, (he looked more like a bloodhound).  Anyway he is now 6 months old and his eyelids are absolutely fine, so like John told me a few months ago, he did grow into them.

Jules

My youngest golden cocker also had droopy eyelids that were very prone to running, but he also "grew into them" ( :D ) and he's fine now, so it's not just labs that can suffer! :)

Hi there,Ive got 2 labs 1 black female whos 6 the other girl is 3 and yellow,my yellow girl has droopy eyes,but she has never suffered from conjuctivitis,mind you they are not as droopy as some labs ive seen.  Julia