Posted: 11/17/2008 11:44:27 AM EDT
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Hello everyone,
This is my first post in the GD pets section and will definitely not be my last as I will soon be getting a new pup. She is a silver pointing lab from my best friend's blood line www.lankaslabs.com . She was born 11/12/2008 and will be coming home to TX on the 1st of Jan. I am pretty excited and anxious to get started with training. She is going to be a house dog and will spend time doing what pointing labs do best (pheasant hunting). I have been without a dog for over 13 yrs and have missed it. I grew up with a female golden lab (Lady) and we were best friends and she was a superb bird dog. This silver lab will be my first house dog so I will probably need some help with training. The wife wants to name here Fergie which is OK but I am still open to some suggestions from the ARFCOM crowd. Maybe a play on her silver color. Thanks in advance and as soon as I get some pics I will post them. |
Good going. I have recently by accident adopted a lab(adopted him from the pet rescue people in front of petsmart. They said he was a rat terrier and he was small at 1.8 lbs. He is full blood lab at 7 month and 40 lbs ).
Expect very high energy output from your munchkin. Start training basics early such as sit and stay. Get a training collar for leash training. Use only positive feed back training for a good dog. With mine, I started training from the first day, little sit and stay training. At about 5 month I started a little leash training and fetch training(still working on that). I started using a training collar(not a choke collar but one that has non injuring prongs, works real well) and he knows he is working when he has this collar on. Keep us posted on your dog. |
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Quoted:
um.... 
i'm keepin my yap shut on this one Got something? Say it, you can't hurt people's feelings on the internet unless said person is a pussy. I know alot of you guys and gals are big on GSD. I also like GSD but they are not known for hunting like labs are. I have been pheasant hunting my whole life and in my experience no dog is better than a lab and when you can get them to hold a point it is awesome. |
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Breeders follow the breed standard to ensure that the qualities of the breed are preserved. Deviations from the standard such as silver coloration are considered serious faults of the Labrador breed and purposeful selection of these traits indicates a lack of concern about the breed as a whole. The other issue is the changing of a Retrieving breed into Pointing one, once again deviating from the intent and nature of the Labrador. If a group of individuals want to breed a silver colored pointing/flushing breed, they should work on developing a new breed with the traits they prefer and not alter the characteristics that define an existing one. I have no doubt that your breeder friend produces good hunting dogs but he isn't producing good Labradors. |
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Quoted:
Breeders follow the breed standard to ensure that the qualities of the breed are preserved. Deviations from the standard such as silver coloration are considered serious faults of the Labrador breed and purposeful selection of these traits indicates a lack of concern about the breed as a whole. The other issue is the changing of a Retrieving breed into Pointing one, once again deviating from the intent and nature of the Labrador. If a group of individuals want to breed a silver colored pointing/flushing breed, they should work on developing a new breed with the traits they prefer and not alter the characteristics that define an existing one. I have no doubt that your breeder friend produces good hunting dogs but he isn't producing good Labradors. Point taken. It is still an unknown how the silver gene was introduced in Labs. Could have been a number of things including inbreeding, interbreeding, or gene mutation (foreign or spontaneous). Either way silvers are a beautiful dog and they have been around since at least the 40's and possibly as long as yellows. My buddy is definitely not the only quality breeder producing quality silver Labradors. Many other so called purebreds are a result of the same techniques used in canine genetics. Who knows maybe one day Silver will be recognized by the AKC just as yellow was many years ago. FYI you can register a "silver" lab under the chocolate designation. |
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The silver and charcoal colors in the Labs are likely to be caused by the same recessive gene that causes it in Australian Shepherds, Dobermans, Chows, Weimerener, and so on. It is a dilution gene that pales the black gene (giving a blue or charcoal color) and the brown gene (giving a silvery pewter to silvered fawn color) There is a color DNA test for this gene available through Healthgene Labs. I don't know how it got there, but it showed up around the late forties or early fifties and had not been recorded in the breed prior to that time. |