Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Pointing labs

My lab points and can break ice and retrieve all day from the duck blind too. It's a win, win that some stuborn people have a snow balls chance in hell of figuring out. No matter to me.

Mark

I would guess that one could train a Rottweiler to retrieve and then it could guard your junkyard and be used for duck hunting or run Golden Retrievers on lions and bears so you'd have a hound and a good family dog... I still can't figure out why anyone would want to. Breeding labs to point will eventually pollute the breed to the point that they are no longer viable hunting dogs - no different than many other breeds that have enjoyed popularity and been subject to rampant irresponsible breeding practices. Eventually a hard driving lab that flushes will become anomalous as entire lines of dogs are polluted with genes prescribing hesitant flushers.

Pollute the breed to make it a less than desirable dog amongst men that hunt birds is a tragedy....

I think the the man protest to much...

Guess all you want. I prefer to deal with known quantities.

Mark

I'm going to guess again and say that you haven't been around many men that hunt birds. Pointing labs are like labradoodles, just a fanciful idea that those who like to be different have embraced. The biggest difference is that labradoodles aren't hurting the breed at all because they aren't being registered and bred as labs. I wouldn't have any problem at all with pointing labs if they couldn't be registered or had a seperate registry.

So you must like labs then?

Hard to beat a good lab - however, as they become ever more popular they are bred for foolishness like color (fox red and silver for example), show dogs (conformation), pointing, pet industry, etc. --- none of which promotes quality labs that do what labs are supposed to do. Look at Irish Setters and Golden Retrievers, beautiful dogs, but how many breeders out there have a line with any hunting ability? Very few. One of the priniciple reasons for this is that they were indiscriminately bred for show and/or the pet industry - no concern for hunting ability. I don't want a german sheperd that can point any more than I want a lab that can. No different than having a 4 wheel drive sports car - pick one or the other or have one of each.

How about the breeding for labs to be seeing eye dogs, bomb dogs, drug dogs, etc? Don't you think the pointers are all bred to point as well?

They aren't BRED for any of those jobs - You can't find a breeder that is marketing Labrador bomb dogs, etc. --- The problem occurs with sloppy breeding between "pointing" labs and real labs and the resultant inconsistancy in offspring. If there were a seperate registry for "pointing" labs there wouldn't be a problem.

I think the problem is all yours.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks. And your guess that I haven't been around many men that hunt birds couldn't be farther out there than any of your other guesses.

Explain how it is good to breed labs for two very different types of hunting yet continue to allow them both to be registered as the same thing. Do you understand the difference between a pointer and a flusher/retriever? I'm all for folks making up their own oddball breeds of dogs, as long as those dogs aren't allowed to be registered thereby degrading the quality of the breed. The whole reason for a breed standard is to maintain the breed - you might not like that but nobody with a brain can argue it either. Pointing labs are no less ridiculous than labs running lions. If your justification for wanting a pointing lab is simply that you like their looks/temperment, then it would apply to absolutely any canine pursuit - why not breed them for cow dogs too. The distinction that some of you seem to be missing is that intentional breeding for non-breed standard traits is much different than training any individual dog for bomb detection, seeing eye dog, etc. Developing strains of the same breed for very different traits will invariably produce weakened flusher/retriever instinct in the breed as a whole... That's not a guess if you're wondering.

I agree all great points

I am not interested it the attempt to explain/argue anything with you. As my grandmother said a long time ago, be careful of who you argue with as someone passing by may not which is what. I guess the long shot of it is, these dogs are out there and obviously there is a desire for them and that's the way it is.

Nice try - pretty weak... Not that I didn't expect it. And you should have listened to your grandmother more closely, you got that one all wrong.

May I interject? I've seen pointing labs do a fine job. They are wonderful in areas with a lot of game. They are intelligent and they make fine companions. Try them where you need a dog to really cast out in unknown country, well, not so much. I've concluded long ago that hunting competitions are silly excersices. I've also concluded long ago that pointing dogs really do excel at what they are bred to do. Versatile dogs do well at what they do; they are for the man that hunts a variety of game over a variety of conditions (but frankly do not truly excel at any jobs that are performed by specialists). Anytime you make a generalist from a specialist you give up some aspect of their performance.

BTW, I know my ID is Huntaria Setters, but this is the finest pointer I've ever seen. This is why I love specialists. Anyway, this little girl is what pointers are all about. Setters are a slight generalization of this.

Well said Huntaria, I don't expect a Lab to perform at the same level as a pointer, after all those qualities were "bred" into pointers for centuries, whereas this is a relatively new development in Labs.

I've owned five Labs over the past forty years. Three over the past twenty that weren't from pointing stock but picked it up pretty quick. They would and will also sit in a duck blind and bring back ducks and geese.

My Labs weren't bred for it but I can see why hunters who hunt waterfowl and upland that like Labs would want pointing Labs. IMO the ability of a Lab to hunt upland and point in addition to retrieving waterfowl makes an already good dog a lot more versatile.

Time for me to shut up. I said pretty much the same thing as above with the same conclusion six weeks ago.

43 I am with you on the pointing labs.

I've scanned through this post and noticed one of y'all making a statement on how labs can withstand the weather better than pointers. I think you need to tell this to a setter. I've hunted in ice storms and they keep on going. This is also why they make great Appalachian grouse dogs: their long coats protect them from the blackberry canes and rhoddendron hells.

Somebody else mentioned that a fellow ought to hunt with what pleases him. Amen. But whatever you do and whatever breed you hunt, understand their limitations. You'll never make a horseback dog out of a pointing lab, nor will you ever make a setter into a big water duck dog. I don't know how many dogs I've seen that were screwed up because somebody had some preconceived notion about what they were supposed to be.