re: How to get my lab to obey better

I'm on my third lab. Now that I have more experience, I realize I expected too much out of my first, when she was a puppy. Play retrieving games with your puppy and praise her like crazy when she brings something back to you. But 3 mos is too young for "training."

Let her be a puppy and ramp up training around 6-9 months. I have a GSD that will be 5 tomorrow and at first my Schutzhund trainer only wanted me doing the basic-sitz, platz-down, and there-stay until he was a year old so that his inherent drives would come through. Also when he did wrong we would say "foooie" instead of no because he said that confused them in drive training. Different than training a hunting dog but it’s still the same foundation of puppy obedience training. Point is don’t mess up her hunt and retrieve drives with too much obedience too soon. Hope it helps.

Welcome to raising a teen aged dog. Just at a stage where she wants to play and not deal with the discipline. Kind of like a teenager. Just make sure she loves to retrieve. If she starts to really ignore you and will probably start not returning reliably soon. You can use a check cord. Just a real small diameter rope attached to collar so that you can reel them in or make them heel when not listening. Don't be too hard just that they come to heel and ignore the unwanted behavior.
Dog training is patience and consistency. It depends on how well you want your dog to be trained. You can look at videos like Danny Farmer dog training or Mike Lardy total retriever training. None of those will start doing anything but retrieving and basic commands until they are 6 months