What is The Labrador Retriever Dog Breed? Where Did It Come From?
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many of you may be confused by what is a
Labrador Retriever what is an American
Labrador what is a British Labrador the
Labrador Retriever breed had its origins
in Newfoundland and because people all
over the world and forever have liked to
meld things to their own specific needs
over the years the Labrador Retriever
has changed from its origins and now we
tend to see a multitudinous what we’ll
call tights we see what people call
British dogs which to John Q public
usually means I want a big head a heavy
body a heavy coat or to some other
people British dogs mean I’ve heard the
British does they’re easier going me you
don’t have to train them very much and
they know everything and they’re smaller
and they don’t shed us much to the
American style which most of the people
in the US would equate to our field and
performance types dogs who tend to be
more energetic a little more refined in
shape and I equate the difference
probably most easily for those of you
who ever watched horse races the
conformation Labrador or the show
Labrador is quarter horse style Blackie
hefty short distance
the sealed or performance Labrador is
much more like the thoroughbred much
more elegant longer limbed sleeker much
faster much higher energy you could
transfer it almost to warmbloods versus
told to up cold Bloods in horses again
the warm Bloods are kind of in the
middle the cold Bloods are like Kersh
runs real laid-back and then if you were
to get into the hot floods or the field
trial dogs that would be like our
Arabians of the dog world so it’s
important when you contact your breeder
that you have in our mind what you are
looking for in a dog and the big thing
you should the breeder should ask you is
what you want to do with this job I’ve
been asked what I think are the
strengths and the weaknesses of the
Labrador and I’ll try to cover that in
both venues meaning performance venues
as well as conformation or our beauty
contest and I think when it comes to our
conformation dogs we need to realize
again the function of this breed and as
our bodies get to be heavier and as they
become a greater percentage of the dog
relative to leg length we are
functionally limiting their ability to
do the work for which they were intended
the strength of the Labrador for both
performance dogs and conformation dogs
is their wonderful personalities
attitudes and
that’s something the Labrador will never
lose they are a wonderful wonderful
breed our conformation dogs tend to be
very sweet very amenable and wonderful
dogs to live with but we need to not
have them so overdone and by overdone I
mean Percheron type that they are no
longer able to function on the complete
flipside of that many of our field dogs
are have become so elegant and so
extreme that they are at risk of damage
to joints just do the lack of substance
and structure and type and particularly
in field dogs
many of them have totally lost that
important water-resistant coat so we
have followers on both sides of our
venue I would love to say that I believe
that there will be another day when we
have another duel champion Labrador I
believe that day has passed us and for
now and hopefully for a long time to
come we will still be able to have
champion master hunters who are able to
demonstrate that while beautiful
examples of our brief they also have the
body structure and type and the desire
and the talent
to be able to be really outstanding
working retrievers we have lots of
opportunities to do that today but both
sides need to look at where the other
side is coming from and if there is one
take-home message that I would like to
say to everybody remember regardless of
our differences our unifying factor is
we all love the same breed which is the
Labrador Retriever so big little short
long slick coated fluffy coated and
whatever black yellow or chocolate they
come in they are all Labradors and each
of us treasure those dogs for different
reasons
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