Caring For Your Labrador Puppy

This is your Labrador puppy care hub. A portal to all of the information you could ever need to properly care for your Labrador puppy. I will aid you in getting your home puppy ready, wade through the early months of questions and confusion, and give you simple instructions for the most important aspects of Lab puppy care. Diet, exercise, health checks and vaccinations will pretty quickly need established routines. Potty and crate training don’t need to cause a kerfuffle if you have the knowledge you need. Here’s everything you need to know how to take care of a Labrador puppy!

Contents

Find out everything you need to know about caring for your Labrador puppy. The Labrador Site is packed with knowledge and expert advice. So we’ve compiled these links to help new puppy parents jump quickly to the topic they need, right now!

Your questions answered

A new puppy is a time of great joy. It’s also a time of challenges, and questions! It can be difficult to know where to begin, but you’ll find the answers to many of your puppy questions below. We look at potty training, feeding, and biting. And we help you with puppy growth issues, crate training problems and upset tummies. We bring you information on diet, exercise, vaccinations, obedience and socialization too. It’s all here!

General Labrador Puppy Care

Bringing your puppy home is an amazing time, but it’s also full of questions and confusion. The Labrador puppy care guides below will help you to navigate the first few weeks with your puppy, get all the equipment you need and keep your mental health intact too!

Puppy Feeding, Growth Puppy Exercise, Food & Growth

Labrador Puppy Development Stages

Puppy Potty Training

Labrador Puppy Behavior

Puppy Training

You’ll find resource pages like this one throughout The Labrador Site. They help you find the information you need right now. You might also want to check out our sections on Labrador Puppy Training .

Do let us know what you would like to see added to the site.  We are always happy to have your comments and suggestions.

Everything you need to know about caring for your Labrador Puppy!

When To Collect Your Puppy

We highly recommend that puppies are not removed from their breeder until they are 8 weeks old. There are lots of good reasons for this. It helps puppies develop good bite moderation skills before they are adopted into a family, ensures that they are ready to adapt quickly to their new life. And it helps to reduce the sad numbers of puppies bred for a quick profit.

Puppies sold under seven weeks old often have health problems and need special care, and extra veterinary attention. So it’s really important that  puppies are left with their breeder until they are eight weeks old.

Check out the following articles for further information:

Your first puppy

Your first puppy is a huge adventure. You have so much fun ahead. It’s important to arm yourself with as much information as you possibly can and to raise your puppy to focus on you and pay attention to you. Labradors are generally very friendly dogs, but they can also be very distractible. So do start daily training games, using plenty of food.

About Pippa

The Labrador Site is brought to you by Pippa Mattinson.


Pippa is the best selling author of The Happy Puppy Handbook, the Labrador Handbook, Choosing The Perfect Puppy, and Total Recall.

She is also the founder of the Gundog Trust and creator of the Dogsnet Online Training Program.

You can get regular training tips from Pippa by email, using the box below

225 COMMENTS

  3. i have a two month old lab. puppy.. she has a little biting urge .. and it is really difficult to cope with. i even got few bruises on both of my hand.. what should i do to prevent from biting further..

  4. i have got a 1.5 month old lab pup.it is quite fat cute
    .iam feedn it with pedigree puppy boiled in cows mik thrice a day .i just loves it .
    when would my pup start eating rice???
    it bites a lot.what should be its height amd weight.we want our dog to bark at the strangers now it dosent ,when will it start to bark????.

  6. hi pippa, my 2 months old puppy bites a lot. . .it keep on biting something or the other. . . always it.ll be lively active ,ham loving it. . .but it bites so hard to play. . .so lemme noe solution for dis prob. . .

  7. I have a 6 month old lab who is semi trained but still very hyper. He has alot of energy even after regular exercise and playing. We recently got a 7 week old pup. Could you please let me know about some tips or advice on how to let these two play together without the 6 month old hurting the new puppy. (sorry if that sounds confusing)

  8. Hi I just recently got a labrador puppy he is about 13 weeks old. Ive been noticing little bumbs under his arm pits and around gentils. I read a couple of articles online saying maybe he got bit by ants but this looks different. Now he doesnt want to eat and throws up any water that he drinks. Please give advice besides take him to the vet.

    • Please take your puppy to the vet. There is no other sensible advice that can be given. A 13 week old puppy that cannot keep down liquids is a medical emergency.
      Pippa

  9. I have brought my female puppy he take all the foods at nighti try to take the dog outside but she does not coming out with me. She plat toilet home itself.whatt I should do for this problem

    • I have bought the 2 month. female puppy 10 days before. I planned to take out on the road for wee. But she wont come out for first 3 day so I thought still she is in fear of new place
      after that she played and obeyed my instruction she come out on road for walking. One day she ate sand so I beat him. From that time to till she not coming out. If I carry out thru hand she used to run back to home. Else she liedown on-the- road itself

  11. One more thing pippa my puppy has the habbit of bitting.. i know it common among the new born puppies bt i have provided her chewsticks n several toys to satisfy her need of chewing bt now she is 3 months old so i thnk she should stop chewing and biting.. i wanna how how to stop my puppy from doing this and after how many months puppies stop chewing and biting…..

  12. Hey pippa me again….. my puppy is scratching herself vry much from past 2-3 days. I have cheaked the ticks but there were no ticks on her body instead of ticks i found 4- 5 small wounds on her body.. m really worried about it . Plz guide me what to do to get rid of this….

  13. Hi, We have a 9 week old labrador puppy. We have had him for about a week & a half now & he is starting to become very good at sleeping through the night & is just about toilet trained (we are nearly there!!). However I have a problem with him during the day, both my partner & I work full time & I understand it’s not adviseable to leave them at home alone for so long. I have family that can babysit him of a day time, however I’m wondering whether this is good for him? To be around other people & in another environment (he goes to their house) every week day? I want to get him used to our house & in the habit of living there, but I left him at home yesterday & he was very distressed & nearly ripped the back screendoor apart! I am happy for my family to care for him (and they are too) during the day, but I just want to know if that’s setting him up for bad habits & not understanding where his home is or who his actual family is. I don’t want to cause him more distress in the long run.

    • Hi Naomi, you can’t leave a small puppy alone all day, or even half a day, so unless you can persuade a relative to come to your home, or pay a dog sitter, then you will need to carry on leaving the puppy with your family. It is possible that he will become very attached to them. Dogs tend to bond with the people that they spend time with.
      Pippa

  15. hey pipa its me ankit again my puppy started passing loose stool last evening so n morning i gave her less food n breakfast nd lunch she vomited in evening it was thick paste and after tht she passe loose stool though it was nt very loose bt it was not also hard what should i do

  19. hey i bought 44 days old female labrador puppy she was on royal canin maxi starter which i continued how much i should feed her and when she should be vacinated its my first pup please help me i want everythng best for her+

  21. hey, thanks for the advice but I’ve got all sorts of stuff for her frm sponge balls to calcium bones but she goes for the rubber instead!

    The rubber won’t do any harm to her body, right?

  23. Hey. My Labrador puppy is three year old and she eats the rubber which is on door stoppers! It’s quite wierd. Though I try my best to stop her, she gets back there again!
    I hope the rubber won’t mean much harm to her because she has eaten the rubber of 3 stopprs already!

  24. haii pippaa…..
    my lab puppy shedding hair a lot…
    also found some wounds in its body… is it worm infection??..
    what to do..

    • Hi Shaa
      Take your puppy to the vet to check out his wounds. All Labradors moult but if your puppy is losing hair in patches this needs looking into. Again, your vet is the person to diagnose and treat your puppy
      Pippa

  27. the best site for dealing with new bought labradors
    this site serves as complete course on labradors
    and the sources which gives complete information about how to care
    your labrador

  29. i am getting two black lab puppies who are 9 weeks, male and female, not siblings but from same breeder, i read about your crate training, just wanted to know , how long should they be left in the crate? and i own a restuarant so i will have to take them with me to work, i have a big garden and my office is on the first floor,which is big too from them to run arournd but as your article they will be in my office room only, and for relieving themself got my toilet. do i have to take the crate with me , can they get used to two crates one at home and one at work.?

    • hi pippa thanks, i have sort of memorised your article on first day of puppy to taking care of puppies. well right now i have opted to take the female and will work on her. there is a male who is 22 days old, we have booked him, so he will be given to us only after he is 8 to 9 weeks. that is another month, so by that time the female will be trained, so i have gone thru the site, but i couldn’t find anything on how to get them together.. read the article on socializing, but doesn’t say about two pup one month apart, and is it a good idea?

      • Hi, the one month gap between your puppies is not sufficient to avoid the problems mentioned in the article. Your female will not be trained when you get your male, though she may be making good progress with her house-training. The ideal gap between puppies is at least a year, so no, I don’t think it is a good idea at all.

        You won’t have any problems putting them together as they will both be so young, though the older one may be a bit rough on the younger until their size difference evens out, and may regress in her house training due to accidents from the other puppy. Your female may come on heat any time after around five or six months and you will have to keep them completely separately for three to four weeks at this time and every six months thereafter unless you have one of them neutered.

        Taking on two puppies of this age is a major challenge and you are likely to have your work cut out if you expect to be able to work full-time whilst doing this.

        Best wishes
        Pippa

  30. Hi Pipa,

    I am getting an 18-20 month old abandoned lady lab tomorrow…i’m the last resort for her. And I have never trained dogs before? any suggestions?
    Thanks

    • Hi Josh, congratulations on your new dog 🙂 Training is a big subject, but one of the most common problems with young rescue dogs is lack of recall. And sometimes overly boisterous behaviour. I recommend you check out the Recall Training Centre for ideas, and join the forums so that you can ask questions as you go.
      Best wishes
      Pippa

  31. hello my lab(3months) is not eating its food properly ,he likes to eat drools and chapati but doesn’t like milk and curd

    what should i do know?

  35. we have a Pomeranian dog of age 4years . Now we wnt to buy a Labrador our dog has bad habits of crying in the night so how to avoid the new puppy from geting the bad habits frm our dog

  36. Hi Pippa

    Just bought my 10 week old Labrador 5 days ago, was told she was paper trained, which clearly she isn’t! She does the toilet anywhere, we’ve been showing here the paper but she hasn’t used it so far, how long does paper training take, roughly?
    I’m also considering crating her, although not really sure how I feel about doing that. Would that be something you recommend?
    Thanks

  38. first time for labs and first time for a girl 7months and just starting to bleed how long and we have a male maltees dog is there any chance of them mating

      • Now he is of 26 days i get it from my relatives plz tell me that what type of food and basic training should i give to him

        • Hi Harpreet, your puppy is far too young to leave his mother, you need to take him back and wait until he is eight weeks old before bringing him home.
          Pippa

  45. Hi Pippa Me again. Except for regular grooming is there anything else I can do to minimize the hair all over the house. We brush her everyday after playtime, but she still looses a lot of hair. Somebody said I can give her Omega 3,6 & 9 capsules. Will it help?

  46. Hi Pippa,I have bought a labrador puppy 2 days back.It is about 2 months old.It sleeps more than 13 hrs a day & seems very lazy.Is it normal?plz reply

    • Hi Nakul,
      Small puppies do sleep a lot, but should be very active when awake. If your puppy is not lively, playful, and bouncy when he is awake, get your vet to check him over and make sure he is in good health. Pippa

  47. Hi Pippa Me again. Except for regular grooming is there anything else I can do to minimize the hair all over the house. We brush her everyday after playtime, but she still looses a lot of hair. Somebody said I can give her Omega 3,6 & 9 capsules. Will it help?

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