Calling all lab fans, have you run into this?

Something very similar happened to me last night at PetSmart with my 5 month old black lab and a lady came up to me and said that she looked exactly like her male of the same age.  She went on to tell me that he has destroyed her living room carpet and then they put in Pergo floors and he has started urinating in the same spot and it is now coming up.  He also chews everything in her house.  I told her I must be lucky because so far the only thing our puppy has messed up is a bathroom rug that she pulled the fibers and made them really long.  Not too bad, I am hoping that we don't run into too much destructive behavior - I am a little worried.  We do crate her when we aren't home and we take her out often, so hopefully things will continue to go well. 
 
My only question is at what age do labs start holding it or signaling that they need to go outside?  (Like going to the door or barking).  Does anyone know of a website that will tell what the normal development is of labs?  Thanks

I can't say I've ever seen a lab puppy any more destructive than any other normal puppy. Because they are a little bigger than the average lap dog, normal puppy behavior may seem worse, though. Part of the reason people may say that is because labs are so popular that it's not hard to find other owners who, due to their own poor judgement, have had problems with their lab. It's ridiculous that so many people have no problem walking up to a complete stranger & telling them that their lab certainly will cause problems. Similar to what Debb said, labs aren't that much different from kids. If you leave them unsupervised all day, cooped up in the house, of course something bad is going to happen!
 
As for the potty-training thing...The lab my bf & I raised was 95% housetrained when we got him at age 8 weeks. He never chewed up anything he wasn't supposed to or cause any real trouble. But then, he had the roommates' 2 other labs to keep him busy during the day and got quite a bit of excerise. We had some really good lab websites saved, but I'll have to hunt those up again.
 
But no worries--dogs are only as good as the amount of effort put into them & you both already sound more responsible than the misguided people telling you the "lab truth."

our pups are lab mix...they do chew alot, but they're teething, so we provide different appropriate toys for them to chew.  you can even get cheap washclothes, damp them, and freeze them, they love to chew those when they're teething! just supervise closely so they don't swallow anything!  our 2 are 4-5 mo. old and 99% housebroken.  google crate-training info and you can find all kinds of advice.  we kept them in the crate except to potty and exercise the first 1-2 weeks and they got the idea pretty quick that you potty outside.  we've been trying the bell hanging on the doorknob trick and our male pup rang the bell for the first time this weekend!

I thought about using the bell on the door, but I know having my 2 cats, it may not work.  Whose names should me trouble 1 and 2. [sm=devil.gif]
Shelbys about 90 percent housetrained, but hasn't had an accident in a few days. When I got her she was about 4 to 5 weeks old. A rescue, about 3 pounds. Since she was so small and legs still shaky,  I used those pee pads by the door. Which helped, but I would  think twice about using them again. Most of her accidents have been by the door where the pad was.
Giving ice cubes, if your puppies like them, helps with teething. A cheap treat!    

 I've had three Labs and I have to say, if you would have asked me after the first one I would have definitely agreed with every terrible story ever told. The first puppy was *awful*--I loved her dearly, she went everywhere with me and was honestly the smartest dog I've ever been around...but she lived to destroy. She stayed in our garage when we weren't home, and she very quickly figure out if she chewed through the wires on the garage door opener, the door would go up and free her. I would have thought this was a fluke, but she did it three times before we learned to put PVC piping around the wires (she eventually chewed that too). Sadly, she died before she grew out of the puppy phase, so I'll never know whether or not she would have calmed down with age. However, our next two Labs were not destructive at all. They came from the same litter, and I can't think of one thing they ever destroyed. Neither was as intelligent as the destructive dog, but they were both very well behaved.
Sorry for the long post, I guess I said all that just to say, every dog is different...not all behavior problems are owner related. I believe there are just some dogs who have a personality that makes them prone to destroying things, etc. Unfortunately, I have another one of those right now; I probably offend GSP owners daily with my horror stories []

I just say something like sounds like that pup needs to be crated when left alone,and mention puppy/obedience classes and excercise.  My dogs have plenty of things of their own to chew/destroy, and, until proved trustworthy, are crated/confined when alone.  Right now our 7 month old is laying behind me with his rope toy.  He just came in from the livingroom, where he was laying infront of the fish tank chewing the same toy. 

I hear stories like that all the time, but I find it very hard to relate to them.
 
Ben is 10.5 months old.  To date, he has chewed a rather bad book on dog training, 2 laptop power supply cords and a high heeled shoe.  Oh, and all of my remote controls have teethmarks.  Every single one of those casualties was MY FAULT.  My dog does not chew to spite me - he chews because it is in his nature to do so and *I* left something tempting in a place he could get at it. 
 
Ben gets appropriate chew toys, a lot of exercise and mental stimulation and I keep my belongings out of the way if I want them to remain intact.  With those boundaries in place then no, he doesn't destroy anything.  All of the above items were chewed months ago, now he seems to have grown out of it to a large extent. 
 
Unlike other lab owners I have heard/talked to, my drywall is still in one piece, the few carpets I have in my house are fine, and Ben has not eaten my dining table.  (That really happened to someone I spoke to.)  The idea that labs are more destructive than other dogs is a myth to me.  The problem, I think, lies in a lab's exercise requirements.  They are active dogs and when they can't burn off all that energy through walks/fetch/swimming/any other appropriate activity, they will find a way to do it themselves.
 
Kate