The Yellow Lab Puppy In Advertising

If you have a product to sell, get a dog in your ads. But not just any dog. You need to get a yellow Lab puppy to do your sales pitch. Unfortunately, a black Lab puppy will not photograph as well. Not only is a yellow Lab puppy jaw-droppingly cute, but they are intelligent enough even at seven weeks of age to respond to basic commands like "come", "sit" or "run around like a maniac." Even if people can't remember at first what your product is the first time they see the add, they will remember the yellow Lab puppy and look forward to seeing the ad again.

The Andrex Puppy

One of the most popular brands of toilet paper in Great Britain is Andrex. And their logo? You guessed it – a cute yellow Lab puppy. This puppy (which obviously changes every few months as the previous one ages) appears on the product label, in print ads and in incredibly adorable television advertisements. His name is always "Softy" and he is a national icon. He even has a wax portrait at Madame Tussauds after the Softy topped the list of a national poll for "Most Beloved Fictional TV Character". The wax puppy's tail even wags.

The Cottenelle Puppy

If American readers think that the Andrex puppy sounds familiar, well, you'd be right. A yellow Lab puppy is the emblem of Cottenelle bathroom tissue, which is basically the American version of Andrex. Both are made by the massive company Kimberley-Clarke. It has only been in recent years that the puppy was added. Previous logos were of a baby and of a cotton plant. Perhaps advertisers thought Americans were stupid enough to try and use a yellow Lab puppy as toilet paper?

K-9 Advantix

Perhaps the best television commercial currently on the air (from a dog lover's point of view) is the one for K-9 Advantix, where a tiny yellow Lab puppy sings, "Ain't no bugs on me!" K-9 Advantix is a medication just for dogs (and puppies as young as eight weeks old) to get rid of mosquitoes, fleas and ticks. You can stop a room full of arguing politicians by playing that ad.

Gay Web Design

Even a cartoon yellow Lab puppy can work in advertising, especially web-vertising. That is the case with YellowPuppy.com, marketed as a "gay web site design service". This is a small business doing big things in making businesses make attractive and user-friendly web pages. Although humans do most of the work, quite a lot of the success can be due to the logo of a goofy yellow Lab puppy.

Photographing The Black Lab Puppy

Ever wonder why most advertisers avoid black furry animals for their billboards and commercials? That's because black dogs, black cats, black guinea pigs, black anything is extremely hard to photograph well. This is one reason why they turn to brighter-colored animals such as a yellow Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy mix. But don’t let this knowledge stop you from adopting a black pet like a black Lab puppy. With patience, an eye for contrasting colors and a decent camera, you can get great snaps of your black Lab puppy.

Make Sure The Pup Is Tired

Best portraits of an all-black Lab puppy are best done outside in natural light, where there are a lot of distractions. You need to get a good play session in with your puppy before you attempt any kind of photography – unless you have high-speed film! Puppies have short attention spans, so also bring noisemakers or squeaky toys to get their attention.

Location, Location, Location

You need to get your black Lab puppy against a lighter colored background such as green grass or clear blue lake water. You definitely don’t want him against anything about as dark as he is. The viewer will have a hard time discerning the puppy from the rest of the picture.

You also don’t want the background to be "busy", with a lot of objects and colors and things to distract the viewer's eye from your magnificent black Lab puppy. You want the background to be as uniform as possible. Be careful with really bright white backgrounds, as they can throw light back into your camera and ruin the shot.

In The Studio

It is certainly possible to photograph your black Lab puppy indoors, although this requires very specific lighting so your puppy doesn’t look like a silhouette in a three dimensional world. If worse comes to worse, take your black Lab puppy to a professional photographer. They have the lighting equipment to make the portrait look life like.

If you'd like to give a go, you need to get what's called a "key light", sometimes referred to as a "hair light", so you can see the hairs on your black Lab puppy instead of just one glob of demon-eyed darkness. This would be placed behind and to one side of the puppy. Then, you need to take a lot of pictures to be sure you get that perfect shot that will forever record the magic of when your Lab was still a little black Lab puppy.


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Could That Labrador/Golden Retriever Puppy Be A Future Life Saver?

It has long been known that some crossbreeds seem to do better than their parents of either breed. It's a question of finding which breeds cross best with other breeds. Some of these crossbreeds even go on to become established breeds in their own right. One of the mist successful crossbreeds in dogs is seen in the Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy, also known as Golden Labrador Retrievers. Even at an early age, they readily show the best of both the Labrador Retriever and the Golden Retriever.

The Perfect Personality?

Both Labrador and Golden Retrievers are dogs that love people and are eager to please. Keep in mind that not every one is alike, and bad training will always make a bad, fearful dog (no matter what breed), but on the whole, a Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy is a born people watcher. They are fascinated by people and seem to identify with them. They also have a lot of strength and energy, which comes in handy for service and search and rescue dogs.

Best Seeing Eye Dogs

According to service dog experts and charities that train seeing eye dogs in England, the best dog for the job is a Labrador/Golden retriever crossbred. There is a strict breeding program run in England by Guide Dogs to raise dogs to be seeing eye dogs. A Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy is first tested at about eight weeks of age to see what his personality is like.

Their training never really stops. Many a Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy fails the program and is put up for adoption as a pet. To take a Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy and turn out a dependable life-saver costs an average of $70,000 (US). They work until old age or illness forces them to retire, and then they are placed in care homes for the rest of their lives.

Other Facts

Although many online Labrador puppies information web sites will say that a Golden Labrador is always yellow, this is not true. Every now and then there is a black or chocolate Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy born. You can register your Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy with the American Canine Hybrid Club.

Every day, ther is a newborn Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy who makes that first step to being a drug sniffing dog, cancer sniffing dog, service dog or a search and rescue dog. They all can rescue us from ourselves and our selfishness and help give our souls back to ourselves.

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Housebreaking The Labrador Retriever Puppy

They're cute, they love you, but they use your home as a huge toilet. This happens to any puppy owner, and not just the owner of a Labrador Retriever puppy. Housebreaking any puppy takes persistence and patience, which not a lot of people have. Sadly, many a Labrador Retriever puppy (usually from nine months old on) is abandoned or sent to the pound for housebreaking problems that are not really the fault of the pup, but of the selfish and impatient owners. Housetraining an older dog is just the same as housetraining a Labrador Retriever puppy.

When You Get Your Pup Home

As soon as you get your new Labrador Retriever puppy – or rescue dog – home for the first time, take them right to where you would like them to toilet. Pick them up and plop them there, if you have to. A car ride especially seems to make a dog or puppy have to pee. Be patient and wait until your new Labrador puppy (no matter what his age) squats. Praise lavishly with kind words and affection and then take them inside.

When You Gotta Go…

If you take the time to observe and interact with your rescue dog or Labrador Retriever puppy, you will soon be able to tell when Nature is ringing that little doggie bell. A dog or puppy will often walk in circles, sniffing the floor or the walls when they feel the urge. If you see this behavior, rush them outside and then lavishly praise them when they squat.

Because they are so young, most puppies like a Labrador Retriever puppy will often pee out of excitement or out of fear. They just haven't been able to develop the bladder control yet. You do need to expect this and not be too harsh on them when this happens. Perhaps you could have your puppy spend time in a room with easy to clean floors or with older carpet that needs a few stains in order to improve it's looks.

When Should They Get It?

All dogs and puppies learn housebreaking in their own time. So, it's perfectly normal for your Labrador Retriever puppy to still be having accidents at seven months of age while the neighbor's chocolate Lab puppy is perfectly housebroken as a wee six months of age. Sometimes it can take dogs a year to get the hang of it. Once they do, they are really proud of keeping the house clean.

If your Lab is over a year old and still having housebreaking issues, please see a vet to be sure there isn’t a health problem.

Should We Clone A Labrador Puppy?

Out of all the creatures in the world to clone, a Labrador puppy certainly seems a lofty goal. Unlike people, the world certainly could use more Labrador puppies. But cloning is an expensive and resource-heavy process. And which dogs do you clone? Although the early death of Dolly the Sheep was thought to be because she was a clone of a six year old sheep (rather than a lamb), dogs are still cloned from adult or aging dogs. Raising a cloned Labrador Retriever puppy is truly going where no man has gone before.

They're Here!

The first dog to be successfully cloned was an Afghan Hound named "Snuppy" in 2005. Snuppy currently behaves like a normal, happy dog. Snuppy's success was the inspiration for the next well-publicized batch of cloned dogs – cloned yellow Labrador puppies from a top drug-sniffing Lab in South Korea. A cloned Labrador puppy in that drug-sniffing project is affectionately called a "toppy" – short for "tomorrow puppy".

Japan has also followed suit in the summer of 2008 with the successful birth of a black Labrador puppy cloned from a caner-sniffing dog with the English name of "Marine". Some cancers make the patient's urine give off a distinctive odor. Well, it's distinctive to a Labrador Retriever puppy, but not to human noses. This is a big gamble, to see if they will grow up to me a Marine puppy platoon, but if it pays off, this could wind up saving millions in cancer detection and care.

Problems With Other Cloned Animals

All fingers and paws are crossed that the effort and expense of gaining a special cloned Labrador puppy will pay off in more easily trainable dogs. Only about 10 – 15% of dogs who try out for specialty sniffing jobs like drug detection actually pass the program. Just like people, not all dogs are the same when it comes to trainability.

There is also good concern that a cloned Labrador puppy will not life the normal, reasonably healthy life of a naturally born Labrador puppy. Dolly's early death has already been mentioned. Cloned dairy cattle have failed to live up to expectations in being able to produce as much milk as the original cow. Also, according to the Center for Food Safety, about 90% of all cloning attempts fail.

Also, having great genes does not guarantee a great Labrador puppy. Genes only play a part on making a great animal. Experience and circumstance also play a major role in shaping the character and ability of any animal. For now, cloning puppies is a gamble. But if the cloned dogs do not suffer and perform up to expectations, then it will be worth the cost.