I always find it ridiculous

Dogs6

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#1
That with how popular labs are people STILL seem to have this image of a perfectly calm dog that is very easy all of the time. Especially with Marley and Me and how popular that was.

A friend is getting a dog and she texted me tonight about how they'd decided on a Labrador "because they're such a calm, easy, friendly dog" .

Then I looked round my living room to see the German shepherd/ bc (soo high energy) entertaining himself with a bone, the springer ( are they not completely hyper?) cuddling my dad, the Jrt lying in front of the fire and the 3 labs wrestling with each other. Yep labs are always super calm lol


Obviously this goes for most stereotypes but this one never ceases to amaze me that people still think labs are always super easy, calm dogs. Mine certainly can be but they are certainly full of life (even the 11 year old!).
 

thehoundgirl

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#2
I had a Lab, Rocky who was an easy, calm dog all of his life. I have met a lot of Labs at the shelter I worked at and most were not calm. :lol-sign: Most of them were younger though and untrained. But there were older Labs who were excited about everything, which is great! And they will play fetch til the cows come home. :p :D They were a lot of fun to work with and I would have taken some of them home in a second!
 

Kilter

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#3
My golden is the crazy one. The border collies, easy. One just stares at the cat, one just gets a toy and brings it to me to show me then if I ignore her, she'll just lay there and amuse herself. The golden is another case...
 

FG167

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#5
I had a calm, VERY easy Lab.

At my work, my fave dogs to train are the Labs - because they are NUTS, have no off-switch, drive leaking out of every pore, and will go until they literally drop. They're fun :D
 

*blackrose

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#6
I love Labbies. But there is a reason I have blocked out all memory of them before they turned 3. LOL I have met some calm(ish) Labs, even as puppies...but most are not. I hate it when people don't realize that.
 

Dogdragoness

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#7
yeah i have heard that about goldens/labs & such when my ACDs (high energy) our JRT (high energy who was actually the best puppy i ever had) & Yumi, the shepherd mix are actually "calmer" then most labs/goldens i have seen... if course, i also give them adaquate excersise.
 

Kimbers

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#8
I know!
I was camping with some friends who asked what Kailey might be mixed with. I said lab was a possibility because of her temperament and they asked if she was really calm.
They have a lab, and she's psycho. Only reason she seems docile at home is because she lives with four avid runners, so she gets lots of exercise.
 

milos_mommy

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#9
That does annoy me...labs were the perfect family dog 20 years ago when kids played ball outside all evening and families went camping or did outdoor activities together on the weekend...

not so much the perfect family dog when you're sticking it in an ex-pen and running to ballet, soccer, working late, and then spending the weekend in front of the x-box :(
 

~Dixie's_Mom~

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#10
That does annoy me...labs were the perfect family dog 20 years ago when kids played ball outside all evening and families went camping or did outdoor activities together on the weekend...
THIS. We had a lab (more like 15 years ago) growing up, and although she was a crazy puppy, we ran around with her in the yard and wore each other out! She was perfect for us. Yes, when she was 2+years old, she was a polite, calm, sweet little dog, but as a puppy she had CRAZY energy! We have video of her as a 3 or 4 month old puppy, pulling me (age 4) around the yard by my shirt, lol!
 

MicksMom

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#11
That with how popular labs are people STILL seem to have this image of a perfectly calm dog that is very easy all of the time. Especially with Marley and Me and how popular that was...
There are calmer Labs out there, but you have to kind of know what you're doing when you pick one. The show bred ones tend to be calmer than the field bred. But, a lot of "John Q Public" won't go to a show breeder because "we just want a pet, not a show dog." Which also means they don't want to spend amount of money a show breeder gets for their dogs. Caleb is calm, for a Lab, always has been. But, I've had a couple of people at work comment on how crazy he was as a puppy (people with no dog experience what so ever). Does Caleb get "wound for sound"? Absolutely. Does he have an off switch? Definitely. Also, what 99% of people don't realize is, that the amount of training it takes to get any dog of any breed to be well behaved.

That does annoy me...labs were the perfect family dog 20 years ago when kids played ball outside all evening and families went camping or did outdoor activities together on the weekend...
That's why I was leary of getting another Lab after Mick died. He was raised on 265 acres, with a 7 acre lake and two boys (they were almost 3 and 9 when we adopted Mick). We moved "into town" when he was almost 8. I thought for sure any Lab we had after Mick was going to be "Destructo Lab" strictly because we don't have an easy outlet for all that energy.
 

Dekka

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#12
Having taught enough puppy classes and family dog obedience. I know labs are not for me. We had some lovely lovely show labs come through. They were still crazy as adolescents. Better than the BYB ones for sure (only dogs to ever try to bite me at classes were labs)

People always say OMG you have JRTs aren't they so crazy....!? They do have their quirks but most JRTs I know are more chill than most labs I know. (they tend to be MUCH much sharper though) Also they are smaller, so even when they are crazy they reek less havoc.

My annoyance stems from teaching classes. Most people know these days they need to train and socialize their dogs. But there is this myth that labs are the perfect family dogs so they don't need training or socialization. Many didn't sign up for classes till their lab was TOTALLY out of control or biting the neighbourhood children.

On a side note.. it always bugs me a little when people say "I have a yellow lab" or "I have a chocolate lab" as if the colour makes them a different breed. I don't add tan and white to JRT when I tell people what Dekka is.
 

Emily

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#13
Yeah, no other breed has physically abused me (and everyone else) at work the way Labs do. And of course we see mostly crappy bred ones. Sadly, it's totally tainted my view of them. Honestly, most that we see are so beyond "out of hand" that it's not even funny. If you ever want to get your fill of badly bred and untrained Labs, work at a daycare! People buy them, don't train them, and then when the dog is insufferable, they pay somebody else to watch it! lol

Our worst dog is at work is a Lab... No, she's not outright aggressive, but she's a compulsive thief, incredibly destructive, unbelievably rude (and I have rude dogs), and plays in a totally inappropriate manner (like, grabbing her friends by the collar and shaking them). Getting her leash on is like wrestling with an alligator, and waiting for her to calm down isn't an option because she bites you. Hard. On the face.

We have a client with a 5 mo old Lab puppy who said, "No one told me Labs had so much energy!" and my boss said, "Well did you ask? Because we could have told you that!"

Now that said, I've met some really lovely ones. Still not my cup of tea but I enjoy interacting with them and laughing at their Labby ways. It's not even the energy and the physical roughness I mind, it's that coupled with absolutely zero responsiveness (which gives them the appearance of being stupid) that's so maddening. The good Labs I've met have been energetic, silly, rough, and yes, a bit hardheaded, but not to a ridiculous or unpleasant extent. Even so, the best Labs are often very energetic and silly for the first 2-3 yrs of their life, IME, and can be overwhelming for the average family who just thought they were getting a pre-packaged perfect dog by buying a Lab. Ugh.
 

monkeys23

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#15
I love my best friend's Lab/RR mix, but omg I'm not kidding when I say he's the only lab I'll ever love. He drives me batshit crazy, but I still love him. Everything Emily describes fits him to a T! He's much better with more training under his belt now, but wow can he lose his little mind if he gets excited...
 
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#16
I've noticed the color thing, too. When we get labs at daycare, they always put the color in the breed part, even though there's a seperate line for color. It's only labs, too. It's so weird.
 

Danefied

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#18
Labs ARE a breeze when you let them get fat in old age. lol
So that's what I'm doing wrong with Bates!

Bates is not full lab, but he's obviously part lab, though clearly not well bred anything.
At 4 he's still balls to the walls, destructive, annoying, rude, pushy, obnoxious, did I mention destructive? This weekend, we went for a long off leash hike in the woods, he played see what I can break crashing in to the great danes, swam, then while everyone is zonked out for afternoon nap in the sun, I look up and he's digging a hole to China in the middle of the front yard. Seriously dude?
Its a good thing he has that cute face look down pat...
 

Maxy24

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#20
The color thing is a huge pet peeve of mine. In class the other day the "question of the day" (how our teacher takes attendance) was what is your favorite breed of dog. There was one Chocolate lab, two black labs, and then my friend who sits next to me just said "Labrador" and then under her breath to me said "I did that for you, I really wanted to say yellow". For some reason people have been trained to say a color, I don't know why that happened with them since it hasn't happened with any other breed of dog. I wonder if some people actually believe they are different breeds.
 

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