I always find it ridiculous

[*blackrose]

Originally Posted by Emily

I don't think I'd ever get one with the exception of a senior. I LOVE senior Labs. They're like... a grandpa who you know used to have a really wild life, and now they just sit back and chuckle. LOL.

That is the absolute truth. LOL

If it wasn't for the fact that I don't think I could handle loosing an older dog in a year or three, especially with Dameon and Rose being seniors themselves and getting to the point they probably won't be around too much longer, I would totally considering adopting this guy:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/23854992

Or this guy:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/18877279

They sound like such good ol' boys.

[Dekka]

Originally Posted by misfitz

I'd bet color genes are somehow linked to behavior genes. Not all of them, but enough to make a difference. In mice, the agouti "wild type" pattern, which is similar to sable in dogs, is known to be more wild-tempermented than white or black mice.

Just look at the Belyaev fox experiment - color is one of the physical things that changed when they selected solely on temperment.

Not likely.

Wild type simply means the colour found in the wild. Now it might be true in some cases in some species. I think its more the human hard wired desire to make pattern connections. That and lines ie some big breeder who liked drivey dogs also liked a particular coat colour. If that breeder is influential enough that can have an effect on the entire breed for a time. It can be long term if people keep the 'idea' going.

Tortie cats are simply a 'mix' of black and orange (the reason you see both colours is due to the bar body effect on X chromosomes) There is no genetic difference between a calico cat and a tortiseshell one. Yet people like to describe personality differences to the cats.

Also take yellow labs... the base colour for ALL labs is yellow. Black is epistatic to yellow. Its a SINGLE allele that makes a black lab black. I highly doubt that that one allele also makes personality changes with the pigment (as that is all it really does)

Chestnut horses, whilst I like to joke 'oh no I have a chestnut tb mare' implying the worst. Yet I have never found a measurable difference and most horse people I know use it more as a joke than a reality. As well chestnut is highly recessive (loses to everything) so many a horse out there carries the chestnut genes. In fact a palamino horse IS a chestnut that also carries the dilution gene. But if being chestnut made temperament issues, then paliminos would also have them.

Also the only difference between a black horse and a bay one is the agouti gene.. but many a chestnut horse also carries that gene, but its never expressed as there is no black.

So I don't put much veracity in the theory that colour is directly linked to personality.

[AdrianneIsabel]

Shamoo was adopted at 10 and she'll be 15 in March. I am pretty sure we have at least another year or two out of her most days.

I would totally own a lab, once it's trained. Training them more often than not hurts my head, I'm totally a "what can I do for you?" dog lover and all of our labs at work are like "hahahahaha HI what can you do for me silly hum- OH MY GOD YOU HAVE A TREAT. GIVE IT. GIVE IT, NOW!" You have to love them though, really, they are some tough mofos. What other dog will dive into below freezing water for a bird they can't even eat over and over again (besides the chessies, shut up). Nuts I tell ya.

[milos_mommy]

I've worked with A LOT A LOT A LOT of labs, and I have never, ever found the "black labs are wilder" too be true. At all. I've known one...maybe two really wild black labs, and a handful of INSANE yellow labs. And one nutjob chocolate lab. And then some pretty calm dogs of all three colors.

[AdrianneIsabel]

Well that is because black labs are known for being the calmer ones.

[milos_mommy]

Originally Posted by AdrianneIsabel

Well that is because black labs are known for being the calmer ones.

wait, really?? I thought black labs were the crazy ones?? if I had it backwards then yeah, that seems pretty legit

[Greenmagick]

hehe, I always heard yellow were mellow, black were active, and chocolates were nuts:P

I will never forget a training eval we had come into the shop one day. Older couple in their 70s. They were very concerned they had a defective puppy because "he is just so hyper!" He was a 12 week old lab:/ "But labs are so good! HE is not good!" sigh

[AdrianneIsabel]

Yellows are silly but good dogs, I rarely see anything but a good (serious) black lab, and every chocolate I meet is nuts. LOL Mind you people bring "naughty" & needs training dogs to me and I get a lot of chocolates, a few yellows and no blacks at all. My experience may be very twisted.

[milos_mommy]

Working in day care and cage-free grooming, we had tons of all colors come in. Lots of mellow of all colors, one or two nutty blacks, one or two nutty chocolates, and a handful of INSANE yellows. But thinking about it, I think all the nutjob dogs were either one or two years old or from bad situations, and the mellow dogs were a little older (5-6 +)

ETA: I will say the most destructive dog I've ever met was a 1ish year old yellow lab. I have never in my life imagined a dog could do that much damage to a dog-proofed area. He yanked the glue up from the linoleum, scraped the paint off a metal bench with his teeth, ate a hole in the sheetrock in a span of 30 seconds and thought bitter apple spray was a treat, regularly picked up and threw around a large metal water bowl (full of water), and when we finally managed to ACTUALLY dog proof the area, he tried to eat the plexiglass wall. Broke through a doggy-gate. He gave me the nastiest bruise on my boob jumping up and grabbing it to "play", as well as nipping me on the face while I was standing (I'm 5'9") and ripping various clothing items. He was The World's Worst Dog. His owner walked him on a halti with a flexi-lead, so that should give you some idea of how good his direction at home was.

I'd still get a lab

[Miakoda]

We had a black Lab (field bred) female named Snowflake. That about sums it up.

Hershey (yeah, I know...original name and all that), here full brother and also black, was sooo calm and laid back. He had energy, but knew when it was time to train, time to work, time to play, and time to relax.

Snowflake got kicked out of training with the trainer telling us, "Hey, at least you've got one great field dog there in that male one." Oh, she brought me many a Kildee birds, all alive and mad as hornets once I retrieved them from her mouth (she had such a soft mouth, and ne'er a feather would be out of place).

I was afraid when Hershey died, that she would pine for him. Nope. She lived another two years, and even at the ripe old age of 15, she was hyper, excitable, and totally in your face and non-stop. Just thinking about her makes me fatigued. LOL

Sadly, their popularity has led to a decline in temperament. I see many with just plain old nasty temperaments. At my former clinic, a sign even had to be put up for new assistants/techs that read "Never assume a Lab is friendly!". Too many people had gotten bitten, completely unprovoked, by assuming the Labs were all inherently friendly.

On top of it all, my two most severe dog bites (1 to the left forearm and 1 to the right groin) came from Labs. The arm occurred when I was out for a jog and a man didn't feel that friendly Labs needed to be restrained/contained on a leash or behind a fence. Instead, I was attacked while jogging. The second one occurred when trying to break up the infamous dog fight between Lab and Mia. I've been bitten one other time by a Lab, when I walked into an exam room, leaned a hip against the table to start talking to the owner (getting history, asking why there, etc.), and the dog just lunged and grabbed my pants leg. And we had a horrible incident in the waiting room when a Lab grabbed a 4-yr-old girl, thank heavens by the back of her jacket and NOT by her actual spine!, and starting trying to drag her and shake her. It was awful, and it took me and another vet choking it off to get it to let go.

So, moral of the story is that the Labrador Retriever is a wonderful breed, but it doesn't mean that every single Lab out there is automatically a kid-loving family friendly beast.