Raising Lab Puppies

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about raising lab puppies. For the most part, when you get a lab puppy, it's going to be already weaned, which is generally about after six weeks of age. That is a very important time between six and twelve weeks of age to where they have to learn their environment and what their adulthood and you know the way they interact with things kind of becomes... or starts from there. So at those young ages, it's very important to start them out early and train them. So raising a lab puppy can be challenging because the grow quickly. They can get quite big. They can be destructive. They're a fairly mouthy breed and they like to test everything with their mouths. So the first thing with raising a lab puppy is going to be good nutrition; check with your veterinarian. There are large breed growth foods on the market by multiple companies and so you don't want to feed a regular puppy diet because it's too caloric. The other thing you want to do is keep them occupied. You know, bones, chew toys, things like that are always good. You want to start training them very early too. Get them to sit. Get them to stay. Those start reinforcing commands and reinforcing the fact that they have to listen to you. Leash training is great when they're very young also and, you know, getting them to basically behave because when one of these guys... when Labradors get large, and if they don't have a lot of manners or a lot of training, then they can be sometimes quite troublesome. So nutrition and interactivity are two very important things when raising a lab puppy."