Wow, 4ever.....

first off, I was taking him to the bird pen for OB work, he was at heel as I opened the pen door, we stepped in and he locked, I also put a pic of him pointing a bird head high tail high from over 20 yards. He has been around pen raised birds enough that he for the most part ignores the scent when it is connected to crate scent as well. he knows that then pen is there and runs to it every time we are at my dads house, this was the first time he was in it. I posted that pic for the guy that said a lab would not point if he saw the bird....

If other breeds are so intelligent, way are labs the only sporting breed used for guide dogs? I would argue that guide dogs are the most highly trainined animals there are. Not bad for a inbred genetically defective breed....


Overbreeding has been brought up. I will be the first to admit that there are loads of "breeders' breeding labs that should not be bred. For the sake of this discussion, those of us defending the labs are talking about field bred labs bred for a purpose, not the back yard breeder that sellhis puppies in teh newspaper for 2oo bucks.

MUSTAD< I used pit bulls as an example, because they are accepted aggrissive as a breed. My point was that there are so many labs that they could have a very low incidence rate, and still have more incidents then a less popular breed. I was not sayin gthat they are less aggressive then other sporting breeds, only that quoting the number of incidents is not a valid stat to compare. How many other sporting breeds are house pets? There for they have far less "oppritunity" to have an incident. It boils down to you have to know your dog, every dog can be provoked. More labs just end up in the hands of idiots that probably don't know dogs. From that standpoint, I envy some of the other breeds lack of popularity. FwIW A friend of mine has five labs and a pointer in the house (and a very understanding wife) the pointer wears a muzzle at ALL times.

Back to the origninal question, all around house dog duck dog bird dog shed hunting dog what ever you want to train a dog to do DOG, a WELL BRED lab is very difficult to beat. What you MAY give up with a lab in early season grouse hunting you more then gain back be being able to hunt open water in single digit temps....