She looks like a lab to me. I personally don't care for the sausage on legs look of the conformation labs, but that's just me (and one reason I don't have labs--the other being I'm too lazy!)
I have done field work/conformation/obedience with the same dog. I believe in multi purpose dogs. I have issues with the show world, however I probably have issues with all competetive venues as well. I breed what I like and as I interpret the standard. And of course, I attempt to breed only healthy dogs (sometimes that's not as easy as it sounds as some problems don't turn up until the dog is older).
But, I do put the blame on the breeders. On the other hand, I think it's not such a bad thing to have diversity between the gene pools as it gives some place to go bring in traits (or even health) that you lose.
I had a friend in goldens whose first show dog was by a conformation champion and out of a field bitch. He not only went on the finish his CH and become a BIS winner he also was a CDX, JH and outstanding sire. Not bad. I think it's important. I also don't think that only conformation champions should be bred.
susie
I'm glad to hear that the Goldens are still multi-purpose. It seems like the breed organization is strongly encouraging performance (judging from the specialty reports in Golden Retriever News, which I subscribe to because I think it's the best all-purpose retriever mag going). We have a couple of conformation dogs in the hunting club that do very well in both venues.
Goldens seem to be bred, more often than not, for color and big, big size. We had a large male, Prior Lake Jake, when we lived in Minnesota and he was a pretty fare duck dog but was almost too big to get in the boat. At 95 pounds, his leap would almost pitch us into the drink, which is the last place to be on a cold Minnesota duck blind morning. One of my friends nicknamed him "Lard-a**."
Me too
Maddie,(Lab/Chow) hunter par excellent, coons, woodchucks, squirrel, rabbit
Guard dog, companion and genius of the dog world!