by Mike Gagnon

Created on: January 25, 2007   Last Updated: September 19, 2008

This breed is strong, medium sized, has a passion for life and an amazing ability to hunt and track on land and water. The Labrador Retriever is one of the most well known and popular breeds of dog in the world.

Healthy adult Labrador retrievers can weight up to 80 pounds and can move at great speeds, despite their size.

Labrador Retrievers come on three different colors; Black, Yellow, and Chocolate. Black Labs are the most common color of retriever and also the original color gene of the breed. Yellow labs are the second most common color of Labrador Retriever and their color is the result of several different genes working in several different ways, which gives the Yellow Lab the widest range in color; from white to fox red. The least common color of Labrador Retriever is the Chocolate lab, which can have a coat that ranges from light to dark brown.

There are also two other colors of lab; Silver and Charcoal. These two colors are not officially recognized by any kennel associations or by breed registers because experts have been unable to verify the source of these colorings and the pedigree of breeding. One theory that seems to have credit is that a line of black labs was bred with silver/blue Weimaraner dogs by a breeder in the 1950's.

The average person will often confuse the Golden Retriever breed with the Yellow Lab. This mistake is easily made thanks to the similarities between the personality, size, and facial structure of the two breeds. The thing to remember is that Yellow Labs, like every type of Labrador Retriever, have short thick coats of waterproof fur. Golden Retrievers have longer, shaggier fur, and although they too love water, their fur absorbs much more water than a Lab's will.

The Labrador Retriever is one of the oldest recognized modern dog breeds still in existence. It's recognition as a breed dates back to about 1800, but the roots of the dog stretch back to settlers of the island of Newfoundland in the 1400's.

In the 1400's a dog known as the St. John's Water Dog, now extinct, was very popular among the settlers of Newfoundland. Over time these settlers would begin to breed the St. John's Water Dog with other ancient breeds of dog that were popular among the Native tribes of the area. It is believed that this new breed of dog would eventually split into two branches and be bred in different regions with other breeds for different reasons. One branch would eventually become the Newfoundland dog breed; the other branch would be bred with

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