Home made dog house

The dogs needed a big dog house for the winter. I did a lot of research and decided to build my own. I built the dog house below based on some free dog house plans that I found online. The dogs like the dog house. However, Maya can be moody and she will kick Max out of the house. So, at some point, I will need to modify the dog house and add a second door and section the house off.

Chew Toys

I have been told (and read) that labs chew everything. I bought this "extra tough" chew toy for the dogs. They chewed right through it and made a big mess.

A sad day

Well, after much debate, we decided to get the dogs fixed. My original plan was to let Max and Maya have one litter but it would be tough to give any of the puppies up. We decided if we wanted another puppy down the line, it would be easier to just buy one. So, we had Max and Maya spayed and neutered. They were drowsy when they came home but were back to normal the next day.

You did what?

Labs love grapes

I picked some grapes from our grape vines. The dogs were hesitant at first but quickly realized they love grapes.

Beach Time

Maya and Max love going to the beach and playing frisbee.

Team work.

Waiting for me to throw the frisbee again.

What the heck?

I walked outside this morning and noticed that Maxi's eyes looked strange. It looked like he was having an allergic reaction to something but we didn't know what. We took him to the vet immediately. The vet said it looked like he got stung in the face by a bee. He gave Max a shot of benadryl. We learned that you can give dogs human benadryl (1 mg per pound). He got the shot at around 11am and was back to normal around 5PM.

Going for a drive

The dogs like to go for a ride. Max tried to put on his seat belt (not too safe). They sit patiently waiting to find out where we are taking them.

Playing Frisbee

Playing frisbee with Maya. She likes to try and catch the frisbee. She also likes to chew on them so we have to put them up when we are done playing. Max is still too small and doesn't catch but he will fetch.

Beach Patrol

Maya and Max had to get out of the way of the beach patrol.

Day at Beach (continued)

Watch a video of Max and Maya at the beach.

Day at the beach

Once Max turned 4 months, he had all his shots and now we could take him to the beach too. The first time we took Max and Maya to the beach together, Maya was a little bigger so she ran write into the water ready to swim. It was Max's first time so he was hesitant but he would follow Maya anywhere so he was swimming in no time. Maya swims faster than Max so when we threw the ball, Max would wait for Maya to come back to the shore so that he can try and take the ball from her.

Unfortunately, Max's first time at the beach almost resulted in a costly trip to the vet. While standing on the sand next to the water, a medium size dog sitting next to Max snapped and attacked him. My wife was next to Max and broke it up quick. Max was wining a bit but we did not see any damage. The other owner disciplined her dog and took her dog away. I took Max back in the water to keep him playing so that he would not be traumatized by the experience. The next day, I noticed that Max's ear was wet under the flap. I though maybe he had some discharge from ear from the sea water. I dried his ear. When my wife when play with him a while later, she said the dogs ear was wet. After further investigation, we notice a small hole in his outer ear that was leaking fluid. My wife took Max to the vet. The vet said that the dog had punctured Max's salivary gland and it was saliva coming out of his ear. She prescribed antibiotics and said that if it doesn't heal in the next two weeks, he may need surgery that would cost around $600. The vet said to keep the wound clean with iodine. After about a week it was still leaking. I put Neosporin on the whole and noticed that the Neosporin plugged the hole and stopped the draining. We kept putting Neosporin on his ear over the next few days and we noticed it was healing rapidly. So, after around 9 days, the whole had closed up. Max was perfectly fine the entire time it was just strange seeing saliva coming out of his ear.


Lesson Learned is that if your dog ever gets attacked by another dog, no matter how harmless it seems, get the owners information and the dogs name and id. Just in case.

Maya and Max UFC

Max (3 months) and Maya (5 months) play pretty ruff but they are keeping themselves busy.



Max has blue glowing eyes and Maya has red eyes. Hmm.