We had a great retriever trainer give a seminar at our club -- Carol Cassity, whose own dogs are all Chessies. She says that, while they seem hard-headed, it's mostly because they are very stoic and they're really soft at heart. Her theory is that if you get too firm with them they just shut down on you. Seems to work for her - she has splendid dogs.
Labs are just impervious to discipline -- besides being natural clowns!
Yes, Soda was truly a softie. In fact, she wouldn’t hunt at all for my husband but would retrieve anything/do anything that I asked her to do...LOL. And yes, they are very stoic and do shut down but some of them truly are hard-headed - Soda’s mom (my original Chessie) was like that. Sassy, decided that she was my ex’s dog and her life’s work (aside from retrieving) was spent trying to dominate me. However, Sassy was one of the best retrievers that I’ve ever had the pleasure of hunting over!
Rex is a softie too but his size makes him the handful....he’s incredibly powerful and an inexperienced Chessie person would have a hard time handling him, which is why I believe he wound up in rescue. I absolutely love him and he’s totally devoted to me.
My cutsie name for him is “Honey bunny” but if I call him that out in public he’s absolutely humiliated and won’t even look at me. In the house when I call him that, his ears cup back and he wants to sit on my lap and just cuddle up to me....LOL