Re: Labrador colours aw they look fab! If you knew how many times it's been suggested I get a chocolate to have the full set....
Re: Labrador colours I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on the old myth(?) that light eyed labs are harder to train than the dark brown eyes? By chance I have a black dog with light eyes who I've had training issues with which I've always put down to background and Rusty has the dark brown eyes and does pick things up very quickly indeed. I was reading a very old gun dog training book that talked about this idea and the author was convinved of it although he'd started off a sceptic years before...
Re: Labrador colours Thats an interesting one Carole. I have not heard of it before, and I guess a lot of dogs would need to be surveyed in order to get any kind of meaningful results. But it is always fun to speculate! All my labs have been dark eyed, and in fact the only light-eyed dog I have had in recent years is my liver coloured cocker Meg. She was very easy to train. It would be interesting to hear what others think. I suspect that light eye may be much more common in liver/chocolate dogs, it certainly is in cockers, and chocolate labs are more likely to carry show blood, rather than field. so some kind of tenuous link might arise there?
Re: Labrador colours he was specifically talking about labs and as it was written in the late 50s I think I don't think there would have been many if any chocolate (liver) labs in the gun dog environment. Maybe you've not heard of it as it's nonsense and it died out as a concept?
Re: Labrador colours I certainly think black dogs tend to have more 'oomph' I would love to see a big study on eye colour and other traits. There is a rumour that grey/blue eyed people make better shots, as the eye is slightly more light gathering - if that's really true, you have to wonder if dogs with lighter eyes are better at distance marking than dark-eyed dogs
Re: Labrador colours Well the dog in my avatar pic is certainly hopeless at judging distances if she is held for any length of time before the pick-up. :
Re: Labrador colours Ahh. So thats why my dogs roll their eyes and snigger when they see me pick up a shotgun. It isn't that I am a lousy shot after all, its just that my eyes are too dark.
Re: Labrador colours She is only young though isn't she David? Marking is partly an acquired skill so she will definitely get better with practice. In the US where marking is very important they use lots of exercises to improve marking skills, I will post up a couple when I get a minute.
Re: Labrador colours I always knew there was a reason I shouldn't even try to pick up a gun! Or was it that very dodgy experience on a rifle range that put me off? hmm Barney has light eyes and can spot a pigeon to chase 3 fields away....
Re: Labrador colours Lots of dogs seem to react to Barney when he's being social - Collies all seem to take an exception to him - is it because he's black or are collies grumpy snappy dogs or something else?
Re: Labrador colours The lady that took our puppy classes said that dogs find the body language and expressions of black dogs difficult to read. It seemed to be true within the population of our class.....Riley was so laid back and playful but some of the other pups just didn't know what to make of him and so were trying to assert themselves over Riley who was pretty much oblivious
Re: Labrador colours Interestingly a number of rescue centres have reported that black dogs are harder to rehome. Could be for a similar reason?
Re: Labrador colours I read that too Pippa - black is second hardest after brindle. I did wonder if brindle staffies were skewing the results (not many breeds have brindle) and sadly there are shelters packed with staffies - such a misunderstood breed
Re: Labrador colours What about stickiness of hair? I find barney's black hairs brush off quite easily but little gold ones seems to weave themselves into everything is this just chance of coat type or is it colour type?
Re: Labrador colours I don't know the answer but, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that black lab hair had a slightly different structure to yellow. I believe blond hair is finer than dark hair in people...
Re: Labrador colours Well Lady's black hair is very fine and silky, but her brother, Milo's, yellow hair is very coarse and thick. So work that one out.
