Chocolate labradors

[pigeonstool]

If you want a "non black" lab - get a golden - they are great game dogs - look lovely - and also make great pets(ish) -- problem solved if you prefer milk chocolate

[al4x]

.realy think it's the breeding that's important and not the paperwork unless you are competing....

 

its an interesting point and I know most on here seem to knock pedigree dogs but out of interest how do you know the breeding without the paperwork?

My dog I can go back 5 generations and know the breeding with an un papered one you take the breeders word for it and they could be inbred for generations. Obviously the paper isn't infallible but its actually probably less important for competing as by competing you do get an idea of the dogs working standard. The worst bit about a lab without papers is it probably won't have had the parents hips tested etc and that is essential when buying a lab if you want to try and avoid one with dodgy hips, by saving £200 buying an unpapered un tested one it could cost you thousands in long term medication.

[garyb]

My springer isn't papered, and it doesn't bother me one bit. He's a cracking little worker as Alex well knows, along with the fact that I simply have no interest in the trial scene anyway.

 

Labs are different owing to Hips and Eyes etc mind...

[WGD]

FTW Styleside Xanadu - would put the vast majority of poorly bred labs to shame - and he's chocolate.

[WGD]

the short answer is No

 

A short answer, and also a wrong one

[al4x]

FTW Styleside Xanadu - would put the vast majority of poorly bred labs to shame - and he's chocolate.

 

 

and he is one out of how many useless ones

[Highlander]

al4x so you believe 'papers' for a dog are correct?

 

The KC registration of dogs is totally flawed in that it's the breeders who fill out the registration and all the KC does is register what they are given. I'm willing to bet that if all so called pedigree dogs were subjected to DNA testing there's be a huge (possibly 70% or more) that would prove not to have the lines claimed.

 

We have registered dogs and unregistered and quite frankly there's no difference in their abilities only if we want to trial them (to prove their abilities) they have to be registered. The whole system is **** and open to abuse.

 

The KC have taken (rightly so too) a lot of stick recently over their so called 'breed standards' based on deformed dogs for showing. If they were also to be investigated for the way 'pedigree' dogs are registered I'm willing to bet they'd be out of business. It's high time they were taken to task over it.

[garyb]

Couldn't agree more with Highlander.

 

The KC do little if anything for working dogs in my opinion, infact they have a lot to answer for after what's been exposed in the media over the past couple of years.

 

I'd always choose a new puppy after vetting it's parents working ability in the field over what certificate it had hung round it's neck.

[WGD]

and he is one out of how many useless ones

 

Very true, but how many useless black and yellows are also out there due to the show breeding?

 

The fact that chocolate labs have do not have a long lineage of trialling blood behind them is the only reason they are, for the most part, not competent in the field.

 

All I'm saying is that the generalisation that chocolate labs cannot be used to good effect in the field is nonsense.

[Highlander]

No WGD you are wrong...the generalisation is that chocolate labs are not good for fieldwork BUT there are always exceptions to the rule. With chocolate labs they're just few and far between!

[bi9johnny]

its an interesting point and I know most on here seem to knock pedigree dogs but out of interest how do you know the breeding without the paperwork?

My dog I can go back 5 generations and know the breeding with an un papered one you take the breeders word for it and they could be inbred for generations. Obviously the paper isn't infallible but its actually probably less important for competing as by competing you do get an idea of the dogs working standard. The worst bit about a lab without papers is it probably won't have had the parents hips tested etc and that is essential when buying a lab if you want to try and avoid one with dodgy hips, by saving £200 buying an unpapered un tested one it could cost you thousands in long term medication.

i have bred black labs for years and did get into the trialing thing for a few years ...i would only accept an non papered dog with my personal knowledge of it's breeding....one thing i did learn in trialing circles is it is a more common thing than you would think to register more pups than your bitch has dropped and to buy in non papered animals later and pass them off....now i know this through experience as someone asked me to do it for them when my bitch dropped 10 pups twice(only ever let my girls drop 2 litters as i wanted to keep the line not interested in the cash)...what i would say is don't believe everything that so called professionals claim/say... i dropped out of the so called dog scene after a judge asked for a favour in exchange for a result and i saw a judge of a ftc kick **** out of his dog..granted not all like that but was enough for me to drop out.....never made ftw or ftc myself but have trained and sold shooting dogs for very good money

it's a funny old world it is

regards

john

[al4x]

Couldn't agree more with Highlander.

 

The KC do little if anything for working dogs in my opinion, infact they have a lot to answer for after what's been exposed in the media over the past couple of years.

 

I'd always choose a new puppy after vetting it's parents working ability in the field over what certificate it had hung round it's neck.

 

 

you'll still only be looking at the parents they say are the parents and have no idea on parentage after that, bitch fine you can tell but sire no way. Highlander so you routinely put down the wrong sire on paperwork or is that not what you mean? I'm sure it happens and maybe more in certain breeds than others but to me its better than nothing, I'd always look at the pup well and the person who bred them to see how straight up I believed them to be before looking at the paperwork. I've a friend who breeds flatcoats and having 12 of them I wouldn't trust her paperwork as far as I could throw it. Certain dogs I'd buy without one and without any tests but they sure wouldn't be labs, at the moment the KC is the only thing we have and testing etc is being relied on more I can go on and check for instance that the sire and bitch of mine are clear for VWD I can also check their hip results and eye results. To me that is a useful side of the setup, they are led to an extent by breeders and with certain breeds this has been a bad thing but they are trying to get out of that rut.

[Highlander]

Sorry al4x but you really are being very naive.

 

Firstly I have NEVER and would NEVER register anything other than the right Sire/Dam to a pup. As I say we have registered and unregistered working dogs but they are never palmed off as being registered if they are not AND I can prove it! Why do you think I sell unregistered dogs if I could register them, it wouldn't be a problem and I'd get twice the money for them.

 

Naive because you think that vets papers pertaining to health etc cannot possibly be fraudulent. Lets say for example I take a dog to be hip scored and it passes with flying colours. I then take the same dog but with different papers for the same test. Hey presto I now have two dogs with good hip scores. Let me say this is not something I would do but I know of it being done and by top breeders. One of whom has a two dogs with 0 0 hips...go figure.

[bi9johnny]

the only true way of getting what you want is to breed your own line which is what i did but when she had 10 it was too much in one go and i found the whole thing of selling the pups and make sure they go to good homes was very stressful.... i have had a couple brought back which i took in too(people not understanding the having a dog full time issue)in an ideal world i would of sold all to shooting homes but it's far from an ideal world chaps

[al4x]

thats actually why I wouldn't buy from a proper breeder with a kennel full of dogs as I'm sure it goes on, however its all we have and yes a lot is on trust and dog breeders generally aren't that trustworthy. You obviously are and there are others like you so where the 70% of pedigrees are fraud comes from is interesting. It would be easy to stamp the whole issue out by microchipping and getting vets to check them before testing but can't see the easy option happening.

Ultimately though fraud does go on its got to be better than a pup from completely untested parents even when you assume some of the results are fraudulent. As time goes on it does look like DNA testing will be more common so its possible the improvements will make the system work.

In the meantime whenever I look for a pup it will be from a normal owner who has a litter or two and takes pride in their breeding, they are about if I was looking for a lab I could pick one up tomorrow and could assure you the sire and dam are who they say they are and that their test results are correct.

[bi9johnny]

thats actually why I wouldn't buy from a proper breeder with a kennel full of dogs as I'm sure it goes on, however its all we have and yes a lot is on trust and dog breeders generally aren't that trustworthy. You obviously are and there are others like you so where the 70% of pedigrees are fraud comes from is interesting. It would be easy to stamp the whole issue out by microchipping and getting vets to check them before testing but can't see the easy option happening.

Ultimately though fraud does go on its got to be better than a pup from completely untested parents even when you assume some of the results are fraudulent. As time goes on it does look like DNA testing will be more common so its possible the improvements will make the system work.

In the meantime whenever I look for a pup it will be from a normal owner who has a litter or two and takes pride in their breeding, they are about if I was looking for a lab I could pick one up tomorrow and could assure you the sire and dam are who they say they are and that their test results are correct.

totaly agree mate and those contacts a worth a lot in my mind

[Highlander]

Sorry but even micro chipping isn’t fool proof, you can even DIY today. The only way it’s ever going to be legitimized is when ALL pedigree dogs have to be DNA tested and by certified laboratories. Unfortunately it’s pretty expensive at present and buyers usually don’t want to pay for it.

 

Why it’s been allowed to get this bad with dogs I don’t know because when you’re talking pedigree bulls, rams etc they are always verifiable.

 

Oh and one other point…just because both parents are good working dogs it doesn’t always follow that the pups will be. Bit like some kids really. Genes are funny things!

[al4x]

you can DIY chips but its hard to duplicate numbers or change them so if a dog has a certain chip number on its card its possible to check it before testing.

 

Everything is about minimising chances of a dud at the end of the day they are animals but having a pup with a history of decent workers increases the odds it will be ok. Similarly Hips if it is from a line with a decent record the higher the chances are that it will be ok, after that both things are then reliant on you and your training and with hips the way you look after the dog in the first year has a definite bearing. However buy a pup from untested and unproven parents and you then add in a further element that makes it less likely you will get the dog you want. In ownership the purchase price is the small cost compared to keeping it and feeding it and vets bills that can come from making the wrong choice.

[tom_0787]

Speaking from experience here-

 

I was asking the exact same questions as you a couple of years ago when I was looking to get my first dog. I got pretty much exactly the same mix of answers as you are getting with some saying no dont do it and others saying its just a colour. My misses had her heart set on a chocolate lab so I spent a long time looking for a litter of chocolates with a working background. I finally found a litter in shropshire that was sired by a stud from Three Valleys Gundogs and the dam was also a working dog. There was drakeshead further back in the pedigree so we bought Magnum. Whilst he was the best dog I could ever have asked for in terms of personality and companionship he was just missing that edge that a working dog needs. Sadly he passed away at only 2 years old following a rare infection.

 

We then decided to get another dog and spoke again to Three Valleys who had a litter of fox red labs that i was interested in with the sire being the shoot owners treasured peg dog and the dam a first rate picking up dog run by the shoot owners daughter. Leo is now 9 months old and let me tell you, he and mahgnum are like chalk and cheese. Leo pickes things up straight away and is so eager to please whereas Magnum whilst also being keen was never quite as sharp.

 

It is all down to breading, chocolates have historically been bred for the show ring and looks over temperment and waorking ability whereas black and yellow dogs have been used in the shooting world for years. There is a far smaller pool of good working chocolate labs than there are of blacks and yellows.

 

Having been down both routes my advice is to look for the best working pedigree over colour.

 

I now prefer yellow labs as you can see them at dusk!!

[Stealth Stalker]

I was going to add the fact that when I bred from my Molly the first thing both the vet and the eye specialist did was check the microchip & cross check it with the KC registration certificate.

I'm with Alex on this although the papers don't guarantee you the perfect dog atleast having the traceability & the tests, its somewhere in the right direction.

Although I must say that dealing with the KC I'm by no means their biggest fan

 

SS

[WGD]

No WGD you are wrong...the generalisation is that chocolate labs are not good for fieldwork BUT there are always exceptions to the rule. With chocolate labs they're just few and far between!

 

But why the generalisation? Only because the gene pool for working yellow and black labs is much, much larger than good working chocolates - these are not flukes that prove to be exceptions to the rule, they are the product of selective breeding.

[utectok]

We got black yellOw and choc labs on our shoot the choc one isthe worst running off in all directions but could be the owner quite often I hear myself saying oh nick do you have a dog? Cause I can't see it!!!

[Asa Bear]

If you like the colour take a look at Chesapeake Bay Retrievers. They have a different temperament to a lab but make a great gun dog.

[tom_0787]

If you like the colour take a look at Chesapeake Bay Retrievers. They have a different temperament to a lab but make a great gun dog.

 

A very different temperament! For me working ability aside, it's the laid back friendly temperament of labs that is the reason that they are the most popular breed of dog in the UK and why I keep them.

 

I have heard Chesapeake's can be aggressive and very protective over house and handler even towards other family members. They do make good water/guard dogs!

[Asa Bear]

A very different temperament! For me working ability aside, it's the laid back friendly temperament of labs that is the reason that they are the most popular breed of dog in the UK and why I keep them.

 

I have heard Chesapeake's can be aggressive and very protective over house and handler even towards other family members. They do make good water/guard dogs!