I hope this blog helps me and others looking to raise a lab..

Yesterday was one of the toughest days we've had with Poppy. She was aggressive, and tried to bite me three times. Not play biting, but 'I'm going to get you good cause you deserve it' vindictive biting. I'm not sure what brought that on, but that was a definite sign of stress; our LO was terrified and ran to her room crying. I think we hit rock bottom that day and in our lowest moment, we felt that giving her away might be best for both her and us. We attributed this to there not being sufficient space for her in an apartment (1250 sft, large by Bay Area standards) and that confinement was not working for her. The last thing we wanted was a vicious dog around our daughter. I'm not ashamed to say that I looked up a couple of websites so we could re-home her. 

After sleeping on it (none of us slept well that night) we all thought about what we could change so Poppy could be more comfortable at home. After all, large and giant breeds have got accustomed to apartment living, why couldn't Poppy? We even removed our glass center table so that she got around 20 feet from wall to wall so she could play fetch. We finally decided that she might have felt stressed out and unwelcome in our home because we shut the doors to our 3 bedrooms. We wanted to open up room by room gradually, as it was easier to keep an eye on her so we could take her to go potty at the right time. This strategy worked, everyone relaxed, including Poppy and turns out, that all she wants is to be able to explore. Of course, there are no guarantees that she will never chew or destroy books or furniture in our bedrooms, but we won't know unless we try. I think everyone will rest easy now.