Lila Yellow Labrador Retriever Female 6 Years Old ID#3412

Meet Lila! This happy 6 year old purebred female yellow lab with a beautiful light cream colored coat has left her farm and her days as a breeding Momma behind her.  Lila’s big smile and wagging tail will win your heart as soon as you meet her. She’s quickly getting adjusted to her new life in her foster home and all the adventures to come.  Please read her blog from the bottom up to learn more about her.

May 15, 2024

It’s hard to believe 2 full weeks have gone by with Lila here at our house.  She continues to be a lovely house guest and relaxing into her new life more and more each day.  She’s a fast learner and will adjust to her forever home with ease.

We’re learning that Lila is at her happiest when her whole pack is in one room with her.  FM, FD and her big sister Ruby are her favorite friends and while she does relax if any of us are off doing something else, she shows a bit of anxiety when she has to say goodbye to any of us.  She’s not a 100% Velcro dog since her curiosity can lead her off to explore spaces all on her own, but she’s very much into her people and pups.  If we can find her an adoptive home where she won’t be left on her own too often, we think that will suit her best.

Each new experience tends to begin with a bit of tentative nerves, but she accepts encouragement and reassurance and generally relaxes quickly.  For example, today we had a fire in our fireplace to see how she would react.  The pops of the burning wood made her nervous, but she sat next to me at a safe distance and let me calm her with gentle pets.  She takes cues from her people and should be easy to acclimate to new things.House training is going very smoothly (accident free since her first few days) and she’s getting into a good rhythm at feeding time, which is good to see.  Last week we had to coax her to eat all of her food, but each day she’s doing better and better at cleaning her bowl.  She’s not overly food motivated (very un-labbie-like LOL) but that’s not the worst thing for a pup who needs to slim down.  She shows zero food aggression to people interacting with her food or her foster sister hovering and drooling over what she might leave behind for a scavenge.  Meals times should settle into a nice calm routine in due course.

She loves going for walks and has built up her stamina for a full mile stroll.  She sniffs interesting smells and watches the world around her with happy curiosity.  She has now seen several neighborhood deer which she definitely wants to chase, but she will stand still and observe them when corrected and reassured.  We’ll continue to work on that to teach her that “look but don’t chase” is the polite way to be.Lila’s doing very well with car rides and this coming weekend we’ll be testing that out with a long drive to visit family in Massachusetts.She’ll get to meet many new people, play with a young hound dog foster cousin, and spend a night in a hotel.  So many adventures and we’re sure she’ll do great!

May 10, 2024

Lila was taking a drizzly afternoon nap today when the mail carrier arrived with a big box of gifts.  Thank you so much to the Brookline friends who packed and sent her this wonderful welcome box!  She enjoyed unpacking the toys and treats (with the help of her foster sister Ruby who was beside herself with excitement!). What a nice way to brighten this gray sky day today!The big blue hippo toy and the nylabone are early faves.

Thank you Brookline for thinking of Lila and sending her all this lovely fun!

May 8, 2024

It’s now been one full week with Lila here at our house and boy does time fly when you’re having fun!

Our former farm girl has showed us that she’s a quick study when it comes to learning new things and continues to be a lovely house guest.  She had a chance to meet our nextdoor neighbor for a hello and some pets and showed no signs of her former shyness.  Our niece dropped by for a visit and Lila behaved very politely with a new person coming into the house.  Nothing but wags and kisses.She behaves very well with resident dog Ruby and the two of them navigate the house together without any friction or dramatics.  Ruby is still trying to decide which level of playfulness she’s comfortable with (Lila would prefer maximum playfulness, for the record), but she has always been a chill pup and Lila picks up on that relaxed energy and doesn’t push it, which is good to see.  Based on this first week, we think Lila will probably enjoy a forever home with a canine companion for her, but as long as she has doting humans I bet she will be fine as an only dog too.She has been taking her daily antibiotics (wrapped in a wadded up slice of cheese – thanks to our foster mentor for that tip!) and her hotspot is already hugely improved.  The redness and scab are gone and she seems less motivated to lick at it, which indicates it no longer itches or hurts.  She wears her soft sided cone when needed without complaint.  We have another two weeks of antibiotics to go and hopefully that itchy problem will be long gone by then.

In other medical news, we were so happy to get Lila’s parasite screening test results back and to learn that she is all clear!  This is one strong healthy labbie!

One interesting and very cute thing Lila does is to gently chew on a blanket, pull a corner of it into her mouth, and then suckle on it quietly to relax.  This behavior was a new one for us so we looked it up online and learned that it’s a harmless self-calming behavior in some dogs, not unlike how a child sucks their thumbs.  She seems pretty attached to this particular blanket and we’ve already decide that when Lila finds her forever home, she is allowed to take it with her.  FD got a picture of her with a mouthful of blanket so you can see it.Leash time has been going pretty well.  Here’s a video of her on a walk showing you how she doesn’t pull too hard and lets the leash dangle.  We have encountered a few new dogs out on our walks and Lila REALLY wanted to go see them up close.  Her energy seemed totally positive and happy (tail wagging at top speed), but we think she needs some work slowing the excitement down a notch or two before we approach new pups.  At her current energy levels she will pull whomever is walking her hard and fast (did you know labs were bred to help pull fishing nets out of the surf?) and may scare the other dogs.  We’ll work on correcting that.

Lila also has a lot of curiosity about what lies behind closed doors.  If you open a closet door, she’s right there nudging her head in to see what new things she can see.  That behavior is fine for a linen closet, but doors to the outside also capture her curiosity and we have to be careful that she doesn’t bolt outside.  She’s getting lessons on how to sit and wait when doors are opened.

Speaking of “sit”, Lila knows a few tricks!  Either her farm family taught her a few things or she’s a trick-learning genius, because she can do Sit and Shake consistently.  “Stay” is proving a bit harder for this energetic girl.  We’re confident that she’s a good learner and will pick up all the basics quickly.

May 4, 2024

Lila has settled in nicely as we begin her fourth day of her new lifestyle as a house dog.  She’s quite good at this new job of hers, which is being adorable, soaking up love from her new people and showing that love right back.  She’s doing very well with her foster sister Ruby and is respectful when Ruby doesn’t exactly want to romp around.

She has experienced so many new things in these first days and while some things make her a bit nervous when she first encounters them (like the moving images and sounds from a TV, a glimpse of her own reflection in a mirror, and even being surprised when her FD took a shower and came back smelling like soap and with strange wet hair), it has not taken long for her to adjust and accept.  She seems to be a happy resilient girl which will come in handy when she joins her forever home soon.After some early uncertainty about the stairs to the second floor, Lila eventually got tired of wondering what her people were doing when they went up there and charged right up to scout out something new.  She descends smoothly too as if she were a stair case pro.  Two story houses will be no problem for this girl.

She has been sleeping soundly and has politely done all of her bathroom business outside in the lawn without any accidents.  Did I mention what a great pet she will be for her lucky adopter?The hotspot on Lila’s leg gave FM and FD some concern, so Lila made a trip to the vet on Friday and it turns out the very nice doctor agreed that Lila needs a little help to heal.  She has 3 weeks of antibiotics and a topical cream along with orders not to lick at that stubborn itchy patch any longer which means she’ll need to wear a cone when she’s unsupervised.  She wore her cone without any fuss last night and slept soundly.  We’re sure she will be a good patient and are happy to help her be a very healthy girl before she is adopted.She also received her vaccines and tests for parasites, so now we can start exploring the neighborhood on the leash and hopefully meet some more friendly pups.  Her doctor says she has a healthy heart and lungs, clean ears and that her teeth are very clean for a 6 year old.  She did tip the scales at 98 pounds, which is too much for a young lady like her, so we’ll get her started on some weight loss to get her back under 80 pounds with a careful diet and lots of walks.She doesn’t let her extra weight slow her down too much and she hopped up into the car all on her own.  We kept the windows up because we don’t know if she might be the type of dog who wants to try a high dive yet, but she was enjoying the breeze from the front windows so we suspect she will probably enjoy rides once she gets used to them.

We’re having so much fun getting to know happy Lila and will keep you readers updated as we spend more time with her.  There are some tennis balls by the back door which we might bring out to play fetch as a next project!

May 2, 2024

Good morning from former farm girl Lila.  It’s a good morning after a good first day and night with her here.  She had an eventful day leaving her farm and joining us here in NJ, but has handled all that stress very smoothly.

When we first met Lila she was shy and nervous, but open to gentle pets and happy to gently take a treat from me.  She’s a strong labbie and required some careful leash control to get her in and out of the cars on her journey which was clearly stressful for her.  She sat in the car quietly and looked out the back window as if she was looking back at her farm to say farewell.
When she got to our home, she met her new FM and resident dog Ruby (our 8 year old golden retriever, who was a rescued farm momma herself).  Lila was very excited to meet Ruby and her energy got the best of her for a moment and was too forward with her initial greeting. She responded well to correction, Ruby didn’t respond or react, and the moment passed allowing them to sniff each other and make friends.  They have been perfectly fine together since that first moment.  I expect the stress of the day contributed to her behavior, which is understandable.
Lila needed to shampoo off her farm smells, so we got out our wading pool and the hose.  She hopped right in and laid down… clearly she’s a classic water loving lab!  As we shampooed her and then toweled her dry we were so happy to see her warm up from her shy aloofness and melt into us, make eye contact and generally open herself up to both FM and FD.  It was a real transformation and she is showing herself to be a typical people-focused happy lab with a wagging tail and love of attention!
Lila is going to be a wonderful pet for whomever adopts her!

Some specific achievements for day/night 1:

She ate all her kibble for dinner after we added a little ground turkey to entice her (and then did the same for breakfast today).

We had one small pee accident inside, but she was sniffing around on one of our rugs which surely smell like our dogs and she marked on one spot.  She stopped going when we corrected her and took her outside to show her the right place to pee.  No other accidents so far and I think house training should go well.
Last night I slept on the couch in our den and we started her in the crate (she went in easily following a treat).  She stress-panted a bit but settled down and slept for 3 hours before waking me up with some small cries.  We went outside to pee and then she slept on the floor next to me without problem.  An hour later she climbed into a dog bed all on her own and curled up for the rest of the night peacefully.

She does well on the leash with the martingale collar and only pulls on occasion.  She’s strong when she does pull, so some basic leash skill training is on the curriculum for her.Steps and doorways have been no problem going in and out of the house.  No interest in trying the stairs to the second floor of the house yet, but we’ll work her up to that.

TV is a new concept for her and it took a bit for her to stop staring and reacting to every new camera angle or sound  during Jeopardy last night.  Cute!

Lila has a semi-healed hot spot on her right front leg which we understand her farmer was treating.  We’ll keep it clean and under observation in case it might need medical care.  She does lick at it now and then which means there might be a cone in her future.  She also has some dry and irritated skin on her nose which we’ll try to soothe for her.  Otherwise she seems to be in great health… she doesn’t even have doggie breath!

We’ll be taking her for her microchip, vaccinations and screenings Saturday morning, so she’s staying home with us until then.

She has been a lovely guest so far and we will keep everyone posted on her adventures!