Moose Droppings

Is America’s Favorite Dog being bred so indiscriminately that its hunting traits will be lost forever?

Jun 28, 2006 @ 10:02 pm by Moose

Laying in a fresh cut corn field and having a flock of Canadians lock up on your decoys is one of the prettiest sights I’ve ever seen in the outdoors. Once the shooting stops often a lab runs out to retrieve the birds before the next flock flies in. The days of the hunting lab may be numbered if the story in today’s Star Tribune is true.

The story compares the popularity of the lab to some great hunting dogs of the past that your unlikely to ever see in the field these days. Cocker Spaniels once used to hunt woodcocks and other game birds are rarely ever seen afield. Heck most guys would consider the Cocker Spaniel a wimpy lap dog. The Irish Setter has met about the same fate. The downfall of these breeds was the excessive breeding for the pet market. The article points out that problem with labs is that breeders seem to focus more on the colors rather then the other traits.

The immense popularity of Labrador retrievers will contribute to the breed’s decline, as long as consumers continue to value the dogs’ color ahead of traits such as intelligence and health.

Is it just coincidence that most labs in field trials are black? Maybe not

But are yellow Labs (and chocolates) inferior in the field to blacks? And are yellows bred to be companion (pet) animals similarly inferior?
Obviously, many top-notch individual yellows exist. But as a population of field animals in the United States, yellows in some instances are inferior, I believe, and I believe as well that unsuspecting purchasers in the United States of some yellow Labradors (and some chocolate Labradors) often are worse for their decisions.

I’ve shared some blinds with some really bad dogs I always thought it was lack of training on the owners part but who knows maybe it’s just a stupid trait…. In the dog .

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