My wife comes home from work yesterday and informs me that a girl she works with is getting giving away two black labs a 5 and 7 year old. The family is a military family moving to Japan and isn't taking them with. We are debating taking these in(my wife knows i've wanted a black lab since we met 6 years ago).

My question is would they be to old to train for a hunting dog? This is by no means a deal braker as my first goal is having family dogs, and maybe hunting second if at all. More or less just a gee whiz question.

Since I'm asking questions about how much do they eat, the bag of dog food i looked at last night said about 3 to 4 cups a day. if this is so about how many cups can i get out of the big bag.

beside the heart worm and flea treatment, any more monthly expenses. trying to get a good idea how much extra they going to cost a month.

thank you very much for your help

Well, there's always a chance it will work, but you are far better off with a young pup, if you want a gun dog. You need to see what they've been exposed to - water, drive or gunfire may rule them out. Then you'd have the expense of two dogs you can't hunt over, which will bite into your funding for a hunting dog.

I rarely go by what the side of a dog food bag says - but most of my dogs are actively hunting or training, so they burn up the calories.

Everything else I do in bulk, use livestock de-wormers/heartwormer and do my own shots, so I'm somewhat out of touch with what most dog owners spend.

to keep them healthy and happy your gonna spend some money... its a small price to pay tho because they will return the investment 10X, as far as hunting... give it a shot, God made them to hunt, the 7 year old is getting up in years and they dont live much past 10 so you are getting one on the decline, and I can guarentee that you are in for some serious heartache in about three or 4 years.

If your funds are tight I'd say pass on the dogs. I have 4 dogs at the house. Most months I spend 2-3 hundred on them. Then there are the times were at the vet for any number of reasons other than shots. Broken nail, next week same dog scratched her cornea. Its kinda like asking what does it cost to raise a kid? Its going to vary with each one.

thank you guys for the info. i am not to concerned with making them hunting dogs, first priority is family dog. i do understand that dogs aren't exactly cheap, i'm more or less trying to get a ballpark figure so i can add that into the budget to see if it is even possible to take them in, but the last thing i want to do is put myself and the dogs in the postion where there isn't enough money for everyone to be happy that's all

I am currently training a 5.5 year old DD. He did have some previous training when he was a pup. It is much more difficult than training a pup. I think he will be good when I am done. He has already been hunting for duck, dove, and snipe and I have onlyhad him since August.

If you want a house or family dog its not a bad place to start. They should be fairly calm by now with that age. As far as the amount of dog food they eat there is no telling every dog is different. Some dogs will eat the everything in the bag and then bag if you let them, then there are some like mine you can give them the bag and will only eat just so much. Once you get the dogs shots the monthly upkeep in my opinion is that much. It's always getting through the first part and thats the first trip to the vet and making sure they are healthy and on their heart worm preventive and so forth. I say give it a shot good family pets pay for themselves with the love that they provide.