Looks like he could be. It's kind of hard to see his eye color. Chessies have a distinctive amber/yellow hue. Lab eyes are more brown.

Chessies are very smart but are also incredibly stubborn. Training can definitely be a challenge for the inexperienced.

Yeah I'll have to agree with you on that one... the first day when we picked him up from the pound, we googled the breed... first line: "Not the dog for first time dog owners." Oops...

But he's well trained and even has his canine good citizen award

This dog owns me. His name is Blu.

What kind of dog is Blu? He looks awesome.

He is a Blue Heeler, a cattle herding dog. And he hates pigs (and they don't like him much either)

Lots of beautiful animals in this thread, and now I finally get to add a story of my own. Mrs. accobra_kid and I decided that, in lieu of presents for eachother on Christmas, we would get a chocolate brown purebread Labrador Retriever puppy!

The litter was whelped on January 9th. 5 males, 3 females. We opted for a female, as we were initially a bit apprehensive about having a large dog in our 1,000 sq. ft. 2-bedroom condo. The females from this breeder are usually more towards the lower end of the breed standards in weight (55 to 65 lbs), so she's actually going to be more of a medium-sized dog. Thankfully we're on the first floor and right next to an exit to our building, but I'm curious if anyone has stories to relate about owning a larger dog in an apartment/condominium.

The dogs are now 3.5 weeks old, which means that we get to pay them a visit and satisfy our puppy fix this coming weekend. Here are a few photos, they're about 3 weeks old in these shots:







Mrs. accobra_kid has had Labs in her family before, but this effectively will be my first dog. We're planning on having her sleep in her crate at night, and we've agreed that she'll only have access to a certain portion of our house until she can be trusted. We've discussed how we want to raise this dog, and agree that raising an ideal family pet may require some tough love early on. However, she balked when when I volunteered to play bad cop with our eventual children in exchange for her doing the same with our dog.

Santa filled my stocking with all sorts of dog items this year. Leash, collar, balls, chew toys, and even one of the best dog toys ever -- a Chuckit!

We're having a hard time agreeing on a name. Short list currently includes Coco, Josie, Lola, Molly, Purdy and Shelby, but we're open to suggestions.

OMG I want to eat them

Got a 2 month old puppy a week ago, love him. The shelter was feeding him Puppy Chow, which is supposed to be terrible, so I've been looking into what to switch him to. I keep hearing that a raw diet is the best, but from what I can tell it's just people saying "they eat raw in the wild, therefor that is the best food," without any kind of science to back it up, only anecdotal evidence. There's a place near me that sells Nature's Variety frozen raw food, so I was thinking of giving it a try. Anyone have any experience with a raw diet or know of any studies?

If I end up feeding kibble, it's going to be Orijen think. They are consistently listed as one of the best foods as they have no grains, only fruits and vegetables for their carbs, and use fresh, preservative-free meat and fish.

Nature's Variety looks like they make a solid canned food. Same idea as Orijen, lots of meats, and fruit and vegetables for the carbs.

I'll probably end up doing a split of wet and dry food, or a 3-way split including some raw foods.

Obligatory pics of Indy:






As far as I can tell, he's half wolf, half teddy bear.

Awesome puppies, Acobra and Matrat! So cute. I love them.

Indy's face looks part Husky to me. He has great big furry paws! Quite possibly the cutest puppy I've ever seen (and he looks so well behaved).

I'm amazed at the 3 wk old lab puppies. They have blue eyes! I love the chocolate color. Very striking.

matrat, that pup is beautiful. I love him!

big <3 to all of those puppies

There is no upside to feeding canned food. None. And even high quality wet food is bad for teeth and digestion. Orijen is a solid choice. As is Artemis (pretty much anything they make) as is innova.

If you want to give your dog something he likes better than dry food as a treat, cook up some corned-beef hash and egg whites.

cant really tell from the pics -- does his tail curl? If so, probably a chow or akita mix thats what the face looks like anyway.

Nice catch. Yes, his tail does curl like a chow, but more importantly he has a blue tongue (I didn't know this was a genetic trait, when I first saw it I thought he was sick). It sucks not knowing for sure what he is, so we were going to ask the vet if they do dna tests. If not, we'll just order one online (any recommendations?). I'll post the results whenever we get them.


About the food, now I'm even more confused. My animal-lover sil was very adament that dry food causes all these diseases in dogs and cats that are avoided by serving wet. I guess I'll look into it more.

DK of any online ones... your vet should be able to do testing... but given A)the blue tounge (this is possible in any breed, but pretty exceptionally uncommon in anything but chows and mixes) B)the curled tail and C)the fact that he looks chow-like enough so that i guessed it without seeing either. i think its pretty safe to say youve probably got a chow or some kind of mix. His face will probably look more chow-like once his ears stand up and his coat grows in a little.

There are some pretty hard core pro-raw-food advocates (and there are some good arguments both ways). But if youre going to go with prepared food, i dont think ive ever heard of anyone who seriously argued wet was healthier than dry.

incidentally, regardless of wether you go with dry or wet food, use a puppy formulation until at least a year old. They have a higher fat content, and northern breed pups need this.

Blue puppy eyes are cool. but it won't be long before they turn to brown.

I have a little guy, a Pomeranian who is about 6 lbs and maybe 10-14 years old (guess by the vet). He had most of his teeth removed and has some liver problems that he is on meds for.

He does the strangest thing but only when I feed him (I hand feed him, I know it sounds nuts but I like to). He will take a piece of food or a treat, eat it, but instead of taking the next one he will look down and just stare until I kind of "shake" him out of it by calling him loudly or touching him.

I have never seen a dog exhibit behavior like this before. Does anyone have any clue why?

Katy, question for you if you don't mind. I don't mean to derail this thread so apologies for asking here, but I am very curious. Now that you have Gunny, can you understand better why I would save my pet instead of a human? I am not asking if you have changed what you would do because I know you are very set on saving the person, but can you understand it a little more now that you have that adorable little fellow?

Looks like there is two pet threads going... pimping my dog here:



She is a Class act!
female cattle dog

just got 8 week year old golden lab

Labs come in three colors - black, yellow, chocolate.

Don't want the other puppies in the neighborhood to laugh at your little guy when he says, "I'm golden."

Forgot one

Meet my old english sheepdogs, Izzie and Nellie.
They're sisters, 2yrs old.

Yes! I do understand it more now. I just love my dog so much. He's probably the sweetest dog in the whole world (even if he does still pee in my house ). Not that I would love him more than a human (I probably wouldn't), but I can understand you better now.

this post. I am so glad you and Gunny found each other.

Does anyone recognize the breed of this puppy?