Flatcoated Retriever Dog Breed Guide
For me they’re intelligent, their a good challenge.
If you like a challenge to train, this is
the dog for you. Once they’re trained, they
are absolutely perfect. They’re wonderful.
Great companions. They’ve got a huge sense
of humour. If you don’t have one, then you’d
better not have one because they’ll get you
into all kinds of scrapes, they’re great with
people. They love children. They’re great
attention seekers, so if you don’t give them
attention. Eventually they will make sure
you give them attention one way or another.
Flat coated Retriever, slightly lesser known
than the Labrador Retriever or the Golden
Retriever, but it is actually closely related
to the Golden Retreiver. Golden Retriever
first came from Flat-coated Retrievers. In
some respects, they’re slightly lighter built
– slightly racier – and they are very wifull.
The Flat coat Retriever is a gundog. It’s
a joyous gundog. Often with a joi the vivre
and a love of water.
They love mud. If it’s slimy and stinky, there
more of it there is the better really. They
love being wet and muddy. So don’t expect
a dog that’s not going to go out and roll.
They also like to lick and they will lick
everything. They will lick people, they will
lick the furniture, they’ll lick the cupboards.
Just learn to live with dog slobber basically.
Yes – dog slobber. Hmmm.
They are called Flatcoated Retrievers. Originally
they were the wavy coated Retriever. They
have got a lot of feathering as you can see,
around here – it’s essential to give them
a good comb through at least every couple
of weeks because they get knots behind the
ears, this can get quite knotty, and if you’re
working them, and you’re out in the countryside,
and they love being out in the countryside,
they are going to pick up thorns, they’re
going to pick up brambles – so yes, you do
need to certainly run your hands through them
every couple of weeks.
Flat coated Retrievers – lovely handsome dogs
– usually nice natured. Medium to high exercise
levels. Because they are quite intelligent
they’re usually easy to train and enjoy the
extra training. We would just look to rehome
them with a nice active family.
Older people – they might be a bit boisterous
for. They don’t just want to sit on the couch
all day long, so you’ve got to be active.
You’ve got to train them, and if you don’t
do that you’ll have a nightmare on your hands.
You’re thinking about lots of early training.
You’re still thinking about the gundog side
of things, of picking things up, so if they
do pick something up in the house that you
don’t want them to have, don’t grab it, think
about swapping it again. So that they are
rushing up to you going “look what I’ve got”
– and you go “oh thank you very much” – have
that instead.
The more you train with a flat coat the happier
they are. For the average pet owner, they
need to bring home their lovely fluffly puppy,
and start training from that moment. Lay down
the house rules and stick with the house rules.
Don’t let the dog do something and then laugh
and say that’s lovely – because tomorrow it’s
going to do it again. So you need to seriously
train from the get-go.
They need quite a lot of physical and mental
exercise, as an adult, and gundog training
is super for them. You don’t have to take
up shooting – you can do things with dummies
– but find a nice gundog club and have fun
with your Flat Coat.
