Talk to me about Labs please

[FreddieStarrAteMyHamster]

Sadly we lost our young rescue Springer this year due to a heart defect. To say we are gutted is an understatement. Before her we had a lovely Cocker who lived to 14 and before her a standard Poodle.
I can't bear the house without a dog by my side. Thinking next year of maybe a Black Labrador due to lots of positive experience on dog walks but know very little about them so doing homework now.
Have DD who is 9 and DH and a big garden. We have rescue rabbits who live outside and are fairly 'bombproof'.
Talk to me about labs please, how much work are they, what are their needs, how long can they be left alone and importantly how do I search for a good breeder as I haven't 'bought' an animal since our Cocker 18 years ago?
Many thanks.

Labradors! Lovely Labradors.

Show dogs - eg the ones from Jimjoy - are bred for looks; the breeders often breed specifically to develop dogs which will do well in the show ring. They aim for a heavier set dog, with a broader head, shorter legs - stouter all around.

Working bred dogs are bred to refine the specific skills that a labrador was originally designed for. They need to be kind, biddable, keen to please with a fabulous nose, brave, intelligent, fast and with the build to enable them to work all day long.

Probably obvious which type I favour!

BOTH types of breeder can and do fail to work on the temperament of their dogs. The breed should be bullet proof, cheerful, friendly, keen to please and quick to learn.

IMO, an ideal dog for a family would be a carefully bred mix of show and working lines; best of both then. I know of a number of fabulous litters about at the moment if you'd like to be put in touch with the breeders to chat.

There are a number of health tests that are essential in my view; hip and elbow scoring, eye testing, CNM, GPRA and EIC. If a breeder has bothered to have all of those tests done, then they have done the very best they can, taken it seriously and are worth pursuing. I would walk away if they had not been done.

Also, the obvious advice of meeting Mum and getting a good feeling about the set up is vital. Temperament is inherited in large part from parents, but socialisation and 'upbringing' plays a really significant part.

I would expect to pay between about £700 for a pup. Much less than that, and I'd wonder about what had been missed.

When we decided that we were going to get a lab, we hadn't realised that working and show lines had diverged quite so much. It was not until we had our pup that we became aware of quite how many different shapes and sizes labs came in.

Interestingly, our lab's sire is a Jimjoy dog, his mother is "just a pet" labrador. (All relevant health tests were done etc..) We are very happy with the build of our boy - he is tall and long-legged without the deep chest. Someone who really knows labs talked to dd in the summer and reckoned that our lab has a lot of working lab in him. There are no Field Champions in his pedigree, but I mean to have a look at it more closely sometime and see if I can find the working lines.

Our lab is lovely! She loves cuddles and is really calm and very well behaved. We've had her for a year (she's 17 months now), and we've only heard her bark a handful of times, she's so quiet. I grew up with a mixture of breeds but labs are by far the most gentle and loving in my very biased opinion!

Ours didn't bark at all until she was fully mature (well over 2) and still only does it rarely and under extraordinary provocation (fox in garden).

Brilliant. Why you are all here, my Lab is 17 months. I still haven't topped this one going nuts and jumping at people.

I managed with the last one. This one cannot help herself the moment anyone encourages her. Whoosh.

We still have that issue on occasion with the boy. But he never tries to do it to close family members and it's months since he did it to a random stranger.
He now reserves it for people who he loves but doesn't see all the time.
The advice we were given was if a dog jumps up at you, or rather when they go to, walk through them essentially, I have done it with quite a few different dogs and it does work well.

Ok. So I'm doing the right stuff still. Sadly I find members of the public either shamelessly encourage her to jump despite my begging them not to or run away screaming. Both actions tend to make her down command and recall somewhat non existent.

I'm considering a small pair of roller skates for her back legs...

Freddie I have a 13 week old yellow lab boy. He's a foxy red colour. Dad is a Field Trial Champion and mum is a pet lab with working lines. He's long legged and not all chunky looking. It was a repeat mating so I met his full brother as the owner brought him to meet us. He is a tall, lean beautiful red colour and it looks like Toby will go the same way.
I looked on Champdogs for ages but they all seemed to have show labs, and personally I prefer the Working/Field look. Very happy with our boy. We got him after our Labrador Sally died in July. She was also from working lines. We paid £550 and he was from a local breeder to us through Pets4Homes. We visited him weekly from 3 weeks until we brought him home at 8 weeks.