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We have a 3‑year‑old Labrador Retriever that my daughter brought when she came to Australia. To be frank, this dog is friendly, energetic, lazy, and extremely foody, which I guess is typical of this particular breed.

Our lab, we call him Exel, has lots of energy as a 3YO, he is too playful and always finds something and wants us to play with him. But trust me, our pet loves people, even the strangers, so we keep him open and shut him in a cage only if a guest is scared of dogs.

But our dog is friendly and eager to please everyone, social, and acts nicely with our entire family, including guests. The way he wants to sit next to us to eat and play with us, I feel our dog loves us as much as we do him, so he latches onto our routine, including mealtime.

Let me tell you, we feed him just once in the morning, as he is gaining weight too fast, but I know feeding once a day is not okay. But our vet and breed guide suggested we should not feed him twice daily.

However, once he comes under the normal weight, we plan to feed him twice, even if with a reduced amount of food. Oh yes, we have dog chocolates for him and give them to him once in a while.

However, we have noticed that our dog is doing fine on one meal because his total daily calories, body condition, and behavior are all good.

Yep, he loves to sit at the corner of the dining area but never enters, even by mistake. He wants whatever we eat, but we would rather treat him once in a while, but he behaves like, "Feed me every time you eat," but that is Lab for you, with a strong habit of kind of begging.

We have given him two designated places to live, one inside and another outside, including an outside toilet in a corner of the backyard. By the way, he is fully potty trained, so he never poos inside the house, not even during the night. In an emergency he makes a special sound that alerts us, so we open the gate of the lobby, and he runs out immediately and comes back as soon as done. He vomits whenever he eats something that is not good for him which he finds in the lawn. For instance the rubber balls meant for playing.

We try all that keeps him happy, like taking him out to the dog park just in front of our house in one corner of Edison Park or kids playing with him on a regular basis. Incidentally, he plays football like a perfect player does and watches when the kids play other games. He loves exercise and going out for a walk or play session that makes him happy.

I have noticed he is friendly, social, trainable, obedient, and calm and listens to our commands like "sit down," "shake hands," etc., and is energetic but lazy.

Finally, I don't like two of his habits, as I feel he is a jealous type because when I talk to kids, he pokes in and disturbs me as if asking me to keep my attention on him, and the other is that his hair falls too much.

My kids give him a bath once in a while, say every week, and we send him to a dog care every two or three months for proper grooming, haircut, etc.

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