The 2 doggies song
i have 2 doggies yes i do
2 doggies and i love them i do
i 've got 2 doggies
2 doggies one yellow one black
2 doggies what you think about that
i have 2 doggies yes i do
2 doggies and i love them its true
Above is the song one of the visitors to my site sent me.
She sings this song for her two labs everyday and I've decided to make the tune of my own to this song
and sing for my Lovely and Bongo.
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It was on September 22 in 1994 that "Lovely", our labrador arrived at our home.
As for me I had longed for Husky 'cause I like its strong and masculine appearance,
but my wife and two sons said "Labrador is the smartest dog. Most of the guide
dogs are Labradors and Huskys can never be guide dogs because of their bad temper and appearance. ( I bet you they are good dogs. Sorry for husky fans.)
Their assertion seemed unreasonable to me, but I knew it's no use talking back against these biased dog lovers.
Of course, I had no objection about keeping a labrador if it can excel a
Husky in intelligence and good temper. So my desire to keep a husky gave way.
How happy my wife and my sons were when they knew my original plan to keep a husky was yielded. My orginal plan would cost me only one-fifth when compared with their plan for a labrador.
After all I accepted their proposal and paid 100000 yen!!!!! ( quite a large sum, isn't it?) with some reluctance.
But after its arrival this reluctance was to be not mine but theirs.
At that time no one in my family knew that we would have a very hard time with
this hyperactive labrador.
On the first day she came to our house, she seemed to
be a puppy which knows very well how to behave herself.
My younger son insisted that we should call her "Lovely" after its lovely appearance
and good temper. Few weeks later we found his opinion a bit wrong.
Partly because we missed the chance to discipline her. ( She got a kennel cough just a week after her arrival. She must have caught it at the pet shop.
But we couldn't complained about this. There was no proof about it.
We went to a veterinerian every week for two months.
Once we were told that "Lovely" couldnot live for long. We were worried about her fate. So we tried everything we could. We paid what we could. If this situation had gone on for a year, we would have gone bankrupt. Fortunately she got better, but unfortunately she got indisciplined.
If we had taught her some of the disciplines at the very first stage,
she might have become an elegant lady. But we both missed the chance.
That's the way of life with a dog (and maybe a wife).
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For those who want to get labrador as a companion dog, we want to give some pieces of advice from our own experience here.
If our experience is of a little help to you, we will be more than happy.
But I should say in advance that our "Lovely" is totally different from usual labs. Maybe you can find Lab like "lovely" out of 1000 labs.
The picture left shows "Lovely", our 29-month-old labrador
with pink bandana.
She got a bit excited when I took this picture.
Bowwow. Bowwow.
A Black tyre and a blue ball are my favorite toys.
Never let anybody use them.
August 3rd, 1997
"I love bathing better than anything else.
"Today my master makes a small bath full of water. How kind he is!
"Bongo often disturbs me while bathing. He is mean!!"
Lovely is truly fond of bathing. She takes a dip in the muddy pond in back of our yard after the heavy rain.
She seems really relaxed. But I don't like it because she makes a mess of her body with the mud which turns this yellow lab into a chocolate one.
That means I have to wash her again and again.
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Labrador FAQ
Is labrador very gentle and easy to tame?
Yes and No. It depends on the individual and on the occasion.
In general Labrador has a gentle temperature and is very friendly to anyone and any other pets like rabbits. But if you are quite unlucky then
you happen to meet a very hyperactive Lab like "lovely".
From our own experience she sometimes go out of hand.
We had some 10 umbrellas destroyed by her.
For those who happen to meet an unusual lab like ours there is factual information of great use about the Labrador Retriever FAQ
I recommend you to refer to this FAQ.
Some say that it takes two or three years for labradors to get matured, so puppy-like temerature lasts longer than you imagine.
In the case of "Lovely" she was in her puppyhood at the age of 2, then she became tamed. So you have to be patient when you discipline hyperactive Labrador like our "Lovely".
She is still improving. (much better these days after two years)
Is labrador not suitable for a watch dog?
Far from it.
Without any training she became a perfect watch dog, which barks a lot when a stranger comes near my house.
It's true she barks relentlessly but never intimidates nor growls.
Unfortunately once she starts barking at a stranger it takes me few minutes to stop her.
But, she never barks at those who were familiar to her since she was a puppy.
She neither barks at a paper boy in the early morning.
When she was a puppy of four or five months she always started barking in the
middle of the night, say at 3 o'clock in the morning.
For about a month every time she barked I went outside and told her not to
bark, finally she stopped that bad habit.
Perhaps she was too lonely to be outside alone and asked us to let her in.
But here in Japan majority of the people keep a dog outside not inside the house.
Our new Black Lab "Bongo" is kept in the house. We changed our life style a bit. But not so many Japanese people keep their big dog in the house anyway.
Does a Labrador have a keen sense of smell and intelligence?
I'm not sure whether she has a keen sense of smell
but she is really fond of smelling everything.
While taking a walk with her, how many times must I stop to let her smell around to her nose's content.
Is she intelligent?
She can stay and sit and wait and roll.
Right now we are training her to go get the newspaper.
She is not a kind of a dog that can come right after she is called, so very
often she goes playing around with newspaper in her mouth.
More often we get wet torn newspaper.
I once read in a book a Labrador is very difficult to get toilet-trained.
Is Labrador easy to groom?
Definitly. Especially when compaired with a hairly dog like, "Golden Retriever".
You have only to brush her every other day.
During summer, however, our dog "Lovely" got some skin disease and got some red dot all over her belly.
We took her to a veterinarian and he gave medicine, which cured the disease in three weeks.
In early summer and autumn and after her periods she shed her hairs. You should know the body of her
smell is stronger than that of "Golden", too.
Can Labrador weather the cold winter?
As I told you she got a kennel cough when she was three months old and suffered
from a diarrhea for several weeks.
However, after that she has been quite healthy for over two years.
She may think nothing of the coldest winter in Japan.
You seem to have pointed out only bad aspects of Labrador. Could you say something good about her?
I seem to have written about too many bad points about our labrador.
But these statements above don't show that I hate her. On the contrary,
I would never part with her even if someone should offer me 1,000,000 yen.
Now she has become an almost part of us. We love her friendly disposition for all her innumerable faults.
She never growls nor gets angry. While eating you can interrupt her by putting
your hand into her dish and she never gets angry.
When you play with her she gets so excited that she licks your face to death.
She is always asking us to play with her. She always want to keep company with us.
However severely you may scold her, she gets over it and comes to you as if nothing had happened.
I will choose a labrador again if I should have a chance to keep another dog.
Labrador is such an attractive dog. But you should know it's a very active
(hyper-active) dog which requires you a lot of patience and care.
After Bongo's arrival Lovely's descipline has been improved a lot. She is not what she used to be any more. Thank God!
Those who keep labradors, please e-mail me.
Let me hear the story about your Labrador and share the experience.
I am sure to mail you back.
Please click.
谷野純夫(Sumio Yano)sunchan@mxk.meshnet.or.jp