[AnAmericanMother]

Wow! Lab discussion! All right!

As many of you know . . . I have a "throwback" Lab, a little Chocolate girl - she is English conformation bred on her sire's side (Mardas Labs in Yorkshire) and Canadian field trial on the other (Storm's Riptide Star). She looks very like her sire except for the chocolate color - she is 42 pounds and 20.5 inches at the shoulder. We have kept her very thin because she competes in agility, but she has bone and substance with a good wide skull and chest. I thought she might look a little "houndy" until I consorted with 10 couple of foxhounds all Saturday.

Her coat is not as thick as it should be because she is a pampered indoor pet, but she minds the cold not at all and was blissfully happy jumping in and out of the cold ocean at 20 some odd degrees air temperature over Christmas. And she is naturally birdy - although we have never hunted her she retrieves beautifully, and she has twice jumped up and caught birds alive and unharmed off the bird feeder. When I yelled, "DROP IT!" and she spat them out, they flew off. She looked at me like, "You silly human, you told me to drop it and look what happened!"

[HairOfTheDog]

She has a nice head. You only think she looks houndy because her ears are prolly a little too big.... makes her look eternally a pup. There are a lot of chocolates without the double coat, I think a throwback to the pointers brought into the line that left behind the occasional chocolate color.

Pretty dog! I have a soft spot for Black labs, but I have always wanted a yellow. I would even end up with a chocolate if that is the right pup in whatever litter we are shopping for our two in. We will be looking for two males, litter mates.

[HairOfTheDog]

Here is one of those big huge Labradors the field trial people are breeding. Belonged to a friend... He was a nice dog, but he scarcely resembled a Labrador. My Logan on the right, who was technically too big for the standard at 25 inches and 90 pounds was dwarfed by him. It is at this point that the breed needs to make a decision to create a new one and stop calling them the same dog.

[SuziQ]

she has twice jumped up and caught birds alive and unharmed off the bird feeder.

LOL! She's so cute! I just love that chocolate color!