The dog on the left belonged to a friend... The dog on the right is my Logan, who was not small, he was actually an inch taller than the preferred height in the standard.
There's a couple different trends going on.... one, breeding for large, moose looking dogs that some think are better, stronger dogs for hunting. (I don't think they have any better endurance at all) and the other, breeding from a very small chocolate gene pool. There seem to be a lot of huge gangly chocolates ;~D
You know, what made my neighbors chocolate lab so ugly was his eyes and head. He had a huge square head and sunk eyes.
Your friends lab in the picture has those ugly eyes.
I have a black lab that has beautiful brown eyes. It's kind of disconcerting because they look human. She's not a great dog, though. Just your regular run of the mill lab.
(1) Limited gene pool for chocs. Folks who want an all choc litter have a real problem because the available animals for breeding may not be the best.
(2) Field trial folks breeding for the big dogs. I don't think it's necessary to get a good field trial dog, it's just one of those rumors that gets started. (Just for contrast's sake, the "rumor" among Golden Retriever breeders is that the "little red dogs" make the best field trial dogs.)
My choc is a beautiful, neat little girl who is actually 1/2" under the AKC standard height . . . but when we measured her in AKC she roached her back up a little . . . so she's officially 21 1/2" tall in AKC, but in USDAA she's 19 3/4" tall . . . luckily! (USDAA height class changes at 20 inches).
She is an odd breeding (I call her my illegitimate child) because her sire is a Show or Conformation Lab while her mother is all field trial breeding. She got the small size and short-coupled build from her dad, and the slenderness and drive from her mom. Her mom's dad (NFC AFC Storm's Riptide Star) is the only choc ever to win a national field trial title, and he is a big rangy dog. Her dad is a champion who throws all three colors, and her litter was about half and half black and chocolate (IIRC, 5 black and 4 choc).
She certainly is not ugly, although she's a little too light in build behind for a conformation dog and her ears are a little too big (a trait thrown by her maternal grandsire along with a funny little bump on her nose).
Shelley (sorry I don't have a pic of her "stacked" - I'm at work).
Shelley's dad, Can. CH Sumo Simbra Black Bordeaux - your typical small solid show dog
Shelley's maternal grandsire - your typical big rangy choc. What's funny is that his pedigree is solid black for 5 generations back, he's just an outcrop from a "nick" - i.e. a couple of hidden genes on different branches of the pedigree that just happened to pop up chocolate.
In this case, the back breeding to a conformation type produced a dog with better type but still retaining the field ability. Good compromise IMHO - she also won't eat you out of house and home (45 pounds).
