What makes-

[imported_admin]

What makes Chessies so hard headed and mean spirited? What makes Black labs so hyper and annoying? What makes Chocolate labs so stupid? What makes Goldens so worthless? What makes Boykins so mental? And what makes yellow labs so damnably PERFECT?

[LabLuvR]

I love em all, specially my widdle bwack female.

[Sasha and Abby]

I have a super hyper/smart FCL. Stereotypes are just as usless in dogs as they are in people.

[2thDoc]

chocs are dumb as bricks....sorry sasha...or is it abby?

[Sasha and Abby]

I have had every color, and you cannot paint them with a wide brush. The worst hunter I ever had was a yellow... but I still loved her anyway. That being said, I would still get another yellow... or chocolate... or a black if the dog/puppy made eye contact and stole my heart (as every one of them will do).

Abby is not a dove dog... she hates heat and loose feathers. I still adore her and she is my best friend. She makes up for this shortfall, on waterfowl and upland birds... and by just being a happy and fun companion.

I would have a hundred if I had enough room.

[LabLuvR]

Yep if I could find someone to feed them, there would be Lab's rainbow farms wif hundreds of labs of all colors running around.

[deadriver]

I think that to some extent color is indicative of past bloodlins that hold a remote consistency. The chocaltes so seem as a whole, more hyper, less intelligent, blacks seem to less so with yellow in between. I have owned them all, and have seen pleny of exceptions to the theory. In pointers, black pointers tend to be outlaws and very aggressive on game, less natural point. They go back to certain black dogs that were agressive.... this has gotten less so with labs due to large breeding populations.

My chessie I have now, is like a lab, willing to please and unaggressive. In fact another dog must force her into a fight by actual physical contact. Then, she quicky, and I mean quicky, takes control of the argument, ends up standing over the other dog, then walks off with her back turned. She is not what I heard of in Chessies, but I am sure they got the rep for a reason. I just got the exception in this case...

In the end each one has a certain nature. Trining can "nurture" their natural tendancies, but not create them. Shit can the ones that don't have it and find them a home where they can be a pet. Make room for another that might have the potential.

[dukmon]

a not very smart yet wonderful yellow......

[Fish]

Dogs do not care about pleasing us. They are conditioned to do certain things that may appear like they are eager/willing to please. They stay in our presense, their pack, in order to garner as much from the arrangement as they possibly can...no more no less.

I have been closely associated with two chesapeake bay retrievers, both males. The one that I owned was large, 130lbs and agressive when he was 1 to 5 years of age. After that his aggression melted away until he was a completely trustworthy dog. The other, an 85lb male was soft as a youth but became extremely dog aggressive and ultimately people aggressive. He was put down after he bit a trainer at the age of five. It took over 100 stitches to close the trainers arm.

The difference in the two...socialization with other dogs. The big dog became more socialized as he aged and the smaller dog was removed from socialization altogether at the age of three.

I never found my chessy to be hard headed at all, in fact he was quite trainable. The smaller dog was a real SOB, however, he had the drive that trainers love to see.

Chocolates were breed for looks whereas black and yellow dogs have been breed for trainablility and temperment for many years. This is not absolute, it is general and it is also, like everything, changing. Chocolates are beginning to make a good showing at hunt tests and the like.

Boykins...who knows? If they were all like Mule I would have a different oppinion but they're not.

Originally posted by ADMIN:
And what makes yellow labs so damnably PERFECT?

That should have been a statement rather than a questions. [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] And you're right!

[Greenwing]

I've heard that chocs are more hard headed and stubborn. My dad has one and seems to be true with his. I didn't have any trouble with my black obediencewise, and he's not overly hyper.

[duckduckdog]

Originally posted by Fishwistle:

Dogs do not care about pleasing us. They are conditioned to do certain things that may appear like they are eager/willing to please. They stay in our presense, their pack, in order to garner as much from the arrangement as they possibly can...no more no less.

I completly disagree. I have a Chocolate Male that i am convinced lives just to please me. He has been the easiest to train and most loving dog I've ever known. He has never been given treats to help in training, his only reward has been the retrieve and the joy he has given me. I can see the dissapointment on his face when I scold him. His only shortcoming as a retriever has been having me a trainer. He has eagerly and quickly mastered everything I have taught him. This may not be the case with every dog, but I cannot be convinced that this is not the case with Woodie. On the other hand I had yellow, (actually fox red) female puppy that is proving to be a bear to train. She is smart as a whip, but very hyper.

[Sasha and Abby]

I'm with you DDG.

[Fish]

duck duck & sushi, you, like many, feel that way. And thats okay, its just not how things really are in the mind of your dog.

Consider the following as an explanation or at least some food for thought.

My yella dog challenges me every single day for dominance. It is an undeniable genetic predisposition that he cannot and will not disregard. He and every other male dog, of normal disposition, is lookin to get to the top of the pecking order. My dog is not especially domineering, he is not even big, but he tries none the less and he always will. They do this to us constantly and if we're not watching closely we will not even see them do it. Only by asserting ourselves as the alpha do we gain the necessary and temporary control required for training. Its all about maintenance.

Females will do the same thing but they are more prone to follow and are more pack oriented, therefore a lot of females will tend to train easier. But I assure you, in the presence of the right person, that female will assume an alpa position.

When you sit down in your recliner and your dog comes over for you to rub her ear, she is responding to her conditioning no differently than when Pavlov's dogs responded to the feeding stimulus he used to make them salivate.

I will acknowledge that dogs do certainly bond. But not in the way some of us think they do and most often we think in our own human terms and feelings when considering a dogs position instead of understanding how they look at the world.

[curlybackdogs]

My yella dog challenges me every single day for dominance. It is an undeniable genetic predisposition that he cannot and will not disregard. He and every other male dog, of normal disposition, is lookin to get to the top of the pecking order. My dog is not especially domineering, he is not even big, but he tries none the less and he always will. They do this to us constantly and if we're not watching closely we will not even see them do it. Only by asserting ourselves as the alpha do we gain the necessary and temporary control required for training. Its all about maintenance.

That is so, so true. I learned it the hard way and had a lot of undoing with my current male chessie. I had to work with a dog behaviorist and read alot of books to see where I was teaching him he was the alpha and not me. I never realized things as simple as letting him walk through a door first could help him think he may be in charge. He is a totally different dog now that I try to eliminate those things.

[Mergie Master]

I've had both yellow and blacks but I was always partial to the yellows. I never fooled with a chocolate. Maybe I like yellows because my first lab was a yellow bitch.

Yellows always seemed easier to train to me. Blacks tened to have a stronger stubborn streak, but I drew that opinion from my experience with a limited number of dogs that I've had dealings with training.

But color does have some effect on physical characteristics in other animals. When I was in high school I raised meat rabbits for some extra money and to eat myself. The processor/meat market in Augusta would pay less for a black rabbit from the same litter as any other color. Greys, browns, reds, and whites all brought a better price. They told me the reason was that at the same age (8 weeks was when I sold) the meat of blacks was noticably tougher. Until then I'd never noticed it but after trying them side by side they were right.

I don't know if this carries over into dogs or not, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Mergie Master]

From what I've read about Chessies they were often trained by the market hunters not only to retreive but to guard the boats and gear when the hunters weren't around. So I assume they were bred to be somewhat aggressive.

[curlybackdogs]

I have found that it is not so much aggressive as it is protective. You can laugh and cut up with me all day long on a dove shoot, but if you come up and hit me or push me, he is going to eat you.