I attended a lab field trial NW of Enid this last May and learned a ton about labs. I have two, a black and a yellow(almost white). The black is 2.5yo and the yellow is 5-6yo and both will retrieve, land and water and will hunt dead as well. The black one I trained myself from a pup, and does very well retrieving, both water and land, and more importantly, will lay down next to my layout blind like a statue until he's told otherwise. The most intersting thing I learned at the field trial was this....... I first noticed that out of the 50 dogs there, they were all black except for a couple of yellows. I asked why just black and the response was this. Black was the original color of the labrador breed. Over time, the yellow was bred into existance and then the brown. A fox color phase is from a yellow, and a silver factor color comes from a chocolate. With each color bred into existance, the natural ability to train, work ethic, and overal intelligence of the original black lab was reduced. The trainers just won't waste their time with the yellows and the chocolates for field trial, there will always be an exception along the way though he said, but overall, the black will be the easiest to train, because it's smarter, has greater work ethic, wants to please more and has a greater overall instict for listening and learning. Hope I didn't offend anyone with a chocolate lab!!
