I never thought about the pottery bowl ... another thing to look for. :o)

Pets at Home do them if you have a store near you - not too expensive, I think they are around £5 for a large one.

Thanks Annie.

Think we make weekly visits to our pets at home store if not more.

We have the raised bowls as our lot like to play paddling pools with anything on the ground ;-D

You also might like to buy this book.. '~A simple approach to gundog training'....John has been owned by Labradors for many years.. the book is well written and easy to understand... and ALL proceeds from the book are donated to Labrador rescue :)

http://www.homealabrador.net/shop/miscellaneous.php

Thanks .. i'm going to get one of those books and see if it will help.

> He has now taken to dragging his food bowl full of water across the kitchen floor and tipping water every where!
>
> Get him one of those heavy pottery type bowls! :-) 

Our pup used to trail her water bowl across the floor and dig in too! I tried all sorts of bowls included so called non slip ones but we still got puddles. I spoke to her breeder and ended up giving her a bucket for her water so she can't move and she can't dig in it. No more mess!

RJS

Hi am new to forum and was reading your post of the problems your having with your Lab. First off Lab are up there on the list of the worst chewing dogs, my friends who own them and have children aswell find that it's the scent of their children's snort, food from their hands that attracts the dog to chew their children's toys in the first place and it's also a confusing for a dog to determine which toys are his and which isn't, so it's best to teach you daughter not to leave them lying around.
Your problem with walking on the lead i highly suggest buying a gentle leader(cost about £10) it has instructions on how to introduce it positively to your dog, it is not a muzzle!! how it works is that it gives you control of the dogs head not it's neck like a collar does. You can easily direct the dogs head away from things you don't want it to go near like picking up rubbish(re-enforced with a leave it command) your dog will learn to leave things alone. The gentle leader will also help lessen the strain on your arm when he pulls as when he does this it puts preasure on the top of their nose quite simular to how a horse bridle works. if definately a good idea I've used them. 

This is normal puppy behaviour, don't leave your children alone with him and when he does mouth a high pitched yell will probably stop him.

There are quite a few sprays that you can buy from places like PAH to spray anything you don't want your puppy to chew.  But it is dangerous that he is chewing cables so he should never be left alone in a room where cables are in his sight!

Try a halti harness, these really help with dogs that pull, and will give you more control.   You could also fill a jif lemon with water and when he jumps up people spray him and a firm 'NO'

Your puppy is going to sense that your daughter is afraid of him, so always be around when the puppy is with her, don't allow him to jump up, use the water and spray him and say 'NO' firmly. 

All the above is just normal puppy behaviour but can seem like a nightmare and you probably think you have a naughty dog.  You should be setting him the behaviours you expect from him while he is young otherwise the problems will seem much bigger when he is a full grown dog!

You also might like to buy this book

I haven't read that book, but John is full of common sense especially about Labradors.  Get that book, it isn't dear and proceeds go to a great cause.

Oh, do I ever empathize with you.  Our 20 week old Lab puppy is a polar opposite to our first.  We are working though all the things you are.  If I may brag a bit, I think I was on this forum before you so can say the methods suggested to you do work.  Not that he is beyond any of those problems, just fewer occasions of them.  And, thank my lucky stars, his recall is fabulous.  So far. 

Jumping up is something we are having less success with and I noticed you said this, "If he jumps up, we automatically say 'down'"  It seems to me you are inadvertently teaching him that the word for being up on you is down.  I would say down, (actually we say FEET) when the feet are back down on the floor.  Down is usually the command for lie down, with the "lie" silent.  Right now I seem to be getting results with teaching our little guy that HUGS means he can jump up.  Then I put his feet on the floor and say FEET.

The water bowl, yes, ours has just started tipping his over too.  I've asked the OH to put a metal strapping belt on the wall to hold the water bowl.

try and make the point to your wee girl that he's just a baby- get her to remember the silly things she did when she was tiny (pulling peoples hair, throwing tantrums, that sort of thing).

if it helps at all our girl Kismet was the worst pup we've ever had. she was awful- chewed everything, didn't house train properly for months and months (genuinely being difficult, she knew what she was doing), appaling recall etc. absolute nightmare. Now she is utterly BOMBPROOF. best behaved, gentlest dog we've ever had- she just grew out of it.

persist and all will be well!

Thanks once again for all the advice.

We've explained to my daughter that he is just a toddler basically and that she needs to be more 'forceful' with him. We dont leave them alone together and we're trying to teach them both how to behave around each other. Only thing is ...puppy has now started pinning her against the wall and 'humping' her! I've caught him doing this a few times. It really scares our daughter and he hurts her. Other than getting him of and doing the usual 'telling off' I dont know how to stop this and I am hoping he'll get ut ofit sharpish.

We dont really have any where, where cables are left around the place in plain sight. After having 2 children and many other children who visit our house is still child friendly. The puppy will rip off cables that are nailed to the wall, mains landline cable for example. This we have now had to place into protective casing.

she needs to push him off and firmly say no or down or whatever you decide then walk away from him. its no fun if no one will 'play'

its really tough but you'll get there!

As for the cables it really is a case of never leaving him unsupervised where he can gain access.

Our dog picks up his water bowl and runs round with it when it is empty - he is just asking us for more water. We have plastic water bowls with tops so they don't spill if the dog picks it up when it has water in it.
As to food, i can guarantee that it can make a difference, some dogs might be sensitive to certain ingredients, it may not be something which affects all dogs. We originally fed our dog on Bakers when he was young and he was very hyper. We changed to Iams, and he became much easier to handle after about 2 weeks (still a big handful though). After over a year on Iams food, a few months ago we ran out and i bought two tins of dog food from the local shop, i did not even think about the food change, until i was saying to my daughter, 'I don't know what's got into that dog today, he is being such a pain', suddenly the penny dropped and i made sure to get more Iams. (I am not saying Iams is good for every dog, just thinking it is worth trying other foods for a couple of weeks to see if there is an improvement.)