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Hey, to each their own. As for my GS, they've been "joyous and sprightly". I like that they *can* be serious - but they are still basically joyous and light-hearted. I don't like endless goofiness in dogs any more than I like it in humans (1 of my cousins is an example - can he *ever* be serious? *Constant* [and I mean that] joking around eventually makes me want to puke!).

Of course, 1 of the Labs across the street is quite serious - he's dog-aggressive and a better watchdog for us than our current GS!

The field bloodlines tend to be more serious and "on message" all the time -- especially the black Labs. Chocolates are a little more happy-go-lucky, at least that's my experience. Not necessarily because of the color, but because they aren't bred to that often because the chocolate factor produces "Dudley" yellows (yellow dog with chocolate skin instead of black skin), so many breeders don't want them in the program.

My dog can turn it on and off -- this morning when the workmen came to see about the deck she was dashing from man to man, bounding and wagging, until I whistled her to "heel" and "stay". Then she sat alert, watching everybody (but with the tip of her tail still twitching in a vestigial wag). And of course if I had let her go she would have started bounding and wagging again . . . but if you show her a duck, she's all business.