Let me introduce my fellow dog first. Task is a Labrador Retriever, a 7 and a half year old black lab. However, as he’s not a young boy anymore but a grown up dog, black is slowly becoming grey on his snout, paws and belly. Some say he’s really typical of his kind, vivid, sometimes stubborn, and dominant, smart, a real male black lab. When hearing these words I’m silently proud, thinking, ooh, that’s my dog, my boy, like a proud mom.

Smart indeed, I can confirm this from first hand, piece of cake for him to master new tricks. The latest one is that he pretends to drop dead when I loudly say “boom”, and he’s so funny doing that, lying immovable on the floor, with one eye still vividly looking at me, but when I give him a serious look, he immediately looks the other way, as he’s trying very hard to concentrate on the task, knowing what follows at the end, a snack. Anything he would do for a snack, this dog of mine, even for a few crumbs. But snacks work best indoors, especially on his home territory, where there are no disturbing factors and he can concentrate solely on the snack. Situation outdoors, on the field is much different. And when he was younger we encountered quite a few problems, mainly disobedience issues, but we'll talk about this some other time.

Task is a prince. At least we call him so, because he lives like a prince in comparison with dogs in the neighborhood. He lives in the house with us (but he wasn’t always living there), sleeps in our bedroom on his dog bed on the floor next to our bed, has his favorite toys, eats carefully selected food, due to his food allergy problems, goes for at least two longer walks a day, and spends a lot of time in the garden, sunbathing and lurking for cats, birds and even field-voles. In fact he isn’t really a prince, he just lives a life of an ordinary pet dog, a life that any dog should live, but unfortunately for many dogs, this is not the case.

Nevertheless, everything is not so shinny. My lab can also be trouble sometimes, as he doesn’t get on well with other male dogs. When he sees one of the same ranks as himself, he becomes very dominant, his hair stands up, he growls and starts barking ludly.

He got attacked by another dog, when he was 4 months old and I assume this aggression/dominance issues with dogs have something to do with that bad experience from the past. Therefore, I advise to all dog owners to look after your dog carefully in the socialization period, as this period is crucial to dog’s mental state. In that period the dog should get to know many different things and situations, therefore, take him along with you on different places, to a shop for groceries, to trips, for walks, for a drink with your friends, for holidays, where he can get to know different situations and environments well. And at that period is crucial to prevent bad experience, such as was my dog’s experience, as this can have negative consequences for the dog . We still have problems because of that bad experience, but try to deal with this more or less successful. As hope dies last, so we won’t give up.

On the other hand, there’s a totally different story with Task and people. Task loves people, I mean, really loves them. He’s yearning for people’s attention, begging for giving him a pat, maybe a snack, particularly if there’s a new person he meets. Then he gets really excited, wanting to say hello to that person, doing those funny snake-like moves with his body, ears back and waving his tail.

Another problem is that Task has some serious health issues. He suffers from food allergies, has a lyme borreliosis and backbone problems (deformations, calcinations, together with arthritis). And currently he’s on a treatment against Helicobacter pylori, stubborn bacteria which invades the stomach, resulting in chronic gastritis and ulcers.

But in the end, he’s part of our family, he’s my sugar and when I got him it was for a lifetime, in better or worse. As he’s my best buddy.