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I know they don’t. I can call my friend anytime(I got both girls and my boy from her) and she will know the lines of any of this breed. It’s amazing. What was cute before she had this litter her daughter, 4 at the time told her she wanted a white puppy from white parents. The founder was there and said it couldn’t be done. Lindsay told her “miracles do happen”. Well it did.

I didn’t know that about lilacs. Her brother’s eyes were the same too. They were a beautiful litter.

That is one beautiful lab in the pic. I love the white spot. Amazing about genetics; isn’t it? I am going to ask my friend if her chocolate lab has one on his foot. LOL She’s probably going to tell me yes. Are they on all of the feet? That one is pretty. My friends two labs are field trial champions. I am not sure about conformation. But their mastiffs love to field trial. Both have been doing it since they were babies. And they have won. LOL It seems one day, the lab pups didn’t want to for some reason retrieve that thing; so Rumor went in a got it and won a big ribbon. It was so cute. And they all have such a good time. I believe Angus, who is my godson puppy, is 6th or 8th in the nation now and his uncle and Rumor’s father was the top mastiff in the country. I am so proud of them.

If your friends' Labs are field champions, they are highly unlikely to be conformation dogs. Unlike the English, who still require that a conformation dog pass a field trial test to be a "Full Champion", the American dogs really have split up into two almost completely separate strains - the hunting dogs (field) and the show dogs (conformation).

Their appearance is radically different.

Show dog:

That's my Shelley's dad, Dozer.

Field dog:

My Ruby the Egregious.

My Shelley -- she is an odd bird because her father is a show dog and her mother is a field dog. She is kind of a half-and-halfer -- she has the square shape and short back of a conformation dog, but she's very skinny and has a more pointed face. My Ruby's bloodline gets the show component from a very unusual kennel - that breeds in the English fashion for dogs that can both hunt and show. The only conformation thing about her is her head -- which is far more correct from a show standpoint than Shelley's.

Re: the Bolo pads. Shelley only has them on her front paws, but she also is starting to whiten up with age and she has a lot of white hairs generally on her back feet. No spots though.

That is a riot that the mastiffs get into the field trial act.

I once spoke with a couple who judge field trials. They wound up with an orphaned AmStaff (aka pit bull) puppy that was fostered by one of their Lab bitches. The AmStaff thought he was a Lab and did all the Lab stuff, including retrieving. They used to run him as a field trial test dog, which of course messed with the competitors' heads . . . .