Why I love labs

Powderhorn Jim said:
All bird dogs are great! That said, we started with labs in Alaska in 1989. We used to fly two down to South Dakota every fall and hunt for a month. After moving back to the lower 48 we have a smorgasbord of hunting opportunities, everything from dusky (blue) grouse to desert quail. We even had a marine mammal biologist in Fairbanks train one of our pups to find seal holes and polar bear dens when he was doing surveys on the North Slope.

We are on our 5th generation yellow lab (the one in my pic at left) and will pick up the 6th generation in March. I'm 74 so this one is likely our last, though who knows, maybe I won't fall apart completely in the next 10 years. Yeah, their tail is a weapon, ours retrieves dirty socks (and underwear) from the laundry hamper, they know no strangers, and they take over the bed at night, but what would life be without them?

Thanks for starting this AKSkeeter. I love all of the photos.
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I worked at the University in Fairbanks and remember seeing 2 chocolate labs sitting in the back of a pickup
behind the ONeill Building. They were used by a arctic marine scientist for locating seal holes on sea ice.
The scientist was Brendan Kelly...this was the mid 1990s.
https://alaskamagazine.com/authentic-alaska/wildlife-nature/a-nose-for-seals/
seal_labrador.jpg
 
AKSkeeter said:
I started in the 1980s with a Visla, then English Setter, then I fell in love with labs.
I've owned at least 2 labs since the early 1990s.

I love their speed and biddability:
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I love their endurance:
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I love their toughness and ability to track cripples through gnarly landscapes:
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I love their willingness to swim long distances in below freezing conditions:
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I love their versatility in all types of cover:
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I love their biddability and ease of training with just 2 bumpers in a lawn environment or any pond:
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I love their happy "let's do this boss" attitude:
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Goose hauler
 
Well they can swim in anything. I saw a lab swim across the Missouri, run down a 14 pound honker,kill it, and swim all the way back 200 some yards,in winter!!
 
Goosemaster said:
Well they can swim in anything. I saw a lab swim across the Missouri, run down a 14 pound honker,kill it, and swim all the way back 200 some yards,in winter!!
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Let me add that goose was barely hit,and he was huge.A pointer would not make a retrieve like that imo.
 
Goosemaster said:
Let me add that goose was barely hit,and he was huge.A pointer would not make a retrieve like that imo.
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That's because pointers are not retrievers, they're pointers 1st and retriever's 2nd. I wouldn't even think about sending a dog other than a Lab, Chesi, etc. on a retrieve like that. I know there are exceptions. A big strong wire being one. But I'm not sending mine to do it.
 
birddude said:
That's because pointers are not retrievers, they're pointers 1st and retriever's 2nd. I wouldn't even think about sending a dog other than a Lab, Chesi, etc. on a retrieve like that. I know there are exceptions. A big strong wire being one. But I'm not sending mine to do it.
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I've seen some pretty amazing Drats and GSP in terms of duck retrievers.
 
birddude said:
That's because pointers are not retrievers, they're pointers 1st and retriever's 2nd. I wouldn't even think about sending a dog other than a Lab, Chesi, etc. on a retrieve like that. I know there are exceptions. A big strong wire being one. But I'm not sending mine to do it.
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I agree it was dangerous. It took about 20 minutes. He had to run that goose down.
 
My second setter was a big Ryman/Hemlock cross. He was the best retrieving setter I have ever enjoyed. I was resting him in the vehicle when my father and I came upon a large Canadian that had been wounded by hunter sharing the land permission by hunting a couple of pot hole ponds. My dad and his two female setters pushed that gander our of the grass water way and then it was on....
Those two females could not get that goose to ground. He was fighting wing (one), nail and beak. The sounds that beak made when it hit one of the girls head was loud! We could not shoot the goose due to proximity of the circling dogs. Dad could not get his dogs off because at this point, they were pretty hot. The goose would run from us so we could not get close enough to help. Finally, I told my dad that I have one dog that would bring that goose to us.

I ran back to the truck, got Buck out on a leash and ran back. He saw the goose and I told Buck to fetch and turned him loose. At this point, dad's circling girls backed off to watch the carnage. Well, Buck had him twice but did not hold on due that goose beating the crap out of him. The second time that goose broke away it took off at a sprint (again) with Buck hot on it. Buck leaped about 4 feet in the air and landed directly on top of that goose with his front paws spread- covering as much as he could. He was facing away from us but as I ran towards him, he turns his head to look back at me like "I finally have him- now you come and get him".

I do not have a lot of pictures of Buck but I have a small one that I have tried to insert below this text.
 

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birddude said:
That's because pointers are not retrievers, they're pointers 1st and retriever's 2nd. I wouldn't even think about sending a dog other than a Lab, Chesi, etc. on a retrieve like that. I know there are exceptions. A big strong wire being one. But I'm not sending mine to do it.
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I'm not a waterfowler but there's plenty of versatile breeds that can hang with labs in terms of water retrieves. I've seen videos of friend's Small Munsterlanders retrieve pretty large geese across water. Just last week I saw on Facebook a video of a guy with a 9 month old Small Munsterlander retrieving geese so versatile breeds can certainly hang with labs. I think a lot of people assume they need a large dog to waterfowl hunt when those medium breeds do just fine.
 
Our new Lab pup is 14 weeks and we took her to a lake for her first water outing. She did really well, no doubt having a big brother to show her the ropes. In the last clip I think she realized she was swimming and was not to sure anymore :)
A short video is on youtube here:
 
TomU said:
Our new Lab pup is 14 weeks and we took her to a lake for her first water outing. She did really well, no doubt having a big brother to show her the ropes. In the last clip I think she realized she was swimming and was not to sure anymore :)
A short video is on youtube here:
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I have a lab puppy, but he hasn't really swam much yet.I hope he does this spring.
 
Munster927 said:
I'm not a waterfowler but there's plenty of versatile breeds that can hang with labs in terms of water retrieves. I've seen videos of friend's Small Munsterlanders retrieve pretty large geese across water. Just last week I saw on Facebook a video of a guy with a 9 month old Small Munsterlander retrieving geese so versatile breeds can certainly hang with labs. I think a lot of people assume they need a large dog to waterfowl hunt when those medium breeds do just fine.
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There aren't that many dogs that can swim across the Missouri in winter, and retrieve a big goose.
 
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