One of my friends said this about Shadow yesterday, after not seeing him for a while. "It's not that he was ugly, but he's really grown into his face now, hasn't he?" So ... you're saying he was ugly. How very dare you. My little prince is the most handsome boy in the whole wide world, I'll have you know! *grumble*
He's lovely! The cheek of it! I have to say though, I do think some puppies are pretty ugly (not Shadow!) but they all grow up to be lovely. Some puppies, like kids, go through really awkward looking phases, I think. Charlie went through one where his body seemed to grow more than his legs, and his neck got thick and out of proportion to the rest of him. Then he had a leg growth spurt and looked much better!
Shadow was never ugly!! Really, how rude. Maybe if this lady/guy has kids you might casually mention that it must be such a relief that little Bobby has finally started to grow into his face.
What a horrid thing to say , poor lamb , it doesn't matter what growing phase they are going through, they are ours and as such , perfect of course
Shadow does have a particular head shape as i mentioned in my introduction post , yet i find it quite intriguing! I'm probably used to the expo labradors head shape probably, beside i think Sirius is not entirely a work line because it doesn't seem similiar to shadow , maybe he's a mix of both. Well he's still growing so i'll see to it , i'm going to post some photos of him eventually . By the way i really like shadow's eyes same for Willow she seems so sweet [h=3][/h]
Oh, Shadow has been all sorts of funny body shapes growing up, but he has always had a beautifully happy, smiley, friendly, benign, gorgeous face. In my humble opinion. Peter I don't know what the norm is for Labradors where you are. In general, the working/field type Labs are quite fine-featured, whereas the show types have that gorgeous, traditional wide flat head. At the broadest differences, they look like almost completely different breeds, but there's all sorts of "inbetweenies" too. ​They're all beautiful Haha, I should really do that!
Exactly , probably shadow is the first working lab that i've seen! Just a question how's your recall with both of them? And what about fetch?
They have a pretty strong recall. They came to me with a good foundation, because the guy that bred them had associated it with meal times, following him round the garden etc. It went a bit wobbly when they hit puberty, but I worked on it a lot and it's getting pretty strong again now. I wouldn't trust it with all situations, but this evening, Shadow went bolting off into the forest after a scent and as soon as I blew the whistle, he turned tail and shot back to me. I was very pleased! We play a recall game which is fun for them on almost every training session, which has made a big difference to the speed they come back. I don't really play "fetch" as such with them. When we're on walks, I chuck the odd pine cone for them, which they love chasing after; their chase instinct is very strong! As for training dummies, Willow is very strong at this (to my standards!) and loves retrieving. Shadow loves going to the dummy, but isn't so interested in picking it up and bringing it back, so I have a few tactics in my head to try and work through that.
Thanks for the answer, i still need to work with the recall because, if i leave the leash Sirius tends to do his business and ignores me when i call him so i adopted this method, basically i made a rope with a length of 10 meters, and i attach that to his collar and he's free to go whenever he wants basically (he doesn't feel it at all) when i call him he usually comes, if he ignores me i just pull a little to stimulate him and he comes as soon as possible which is good. The only thing which i can't figure is this, when i do the whole exercise with the leash on him, when i call him and if he comes after few meters he rotates his head and tries to bite the leash while he's coming towards me which is weird.....
Rather than pulling on the leash Peter, try waiting for Sirius to look at you and rewarding him for that. So hold the leash, and wait him out. When he turns to look at you - big reward. This helps him learn that he can control the flow of rewards by adjusting his behaviour.
I apologize i explained the whole exercise and the problem with the leash in a poor manner, basically when i make Sirius lie down with the leash on him (the short one) during the call he comes towards me he spins his head and bite the leash and stops to chew on it.While with the long leash/rope whatever you want to call it i don't make the dog stay in a position i just let him free ( i just walk in a opposite direction and then i call him to see if he comes, which he does)
