blacklabrador

Mrs TS He is somewhere between 9 months and 1 year in the first photo and 3 in the second photo. Your boy's father is lovely!

My thoughts too - I think he's a cross.

I'm guessing at who that is and I don't completely agree. I do like more recent breedings though but they have changed in recent times to a more heavily set dog from what I've witnessed. Unfortunately the USA have distinctly different field and show types. They tend to call the show type "English". I am not sure what is going on with the field labs - they have strayed a long way away from how a labrador should look.

I wonder how many people think Teddy is too fat? To me he doesnt look fat because he has a waist but maybe others would disagree with me? I don't think anybody who knows labradors would disagree with you. She is heavily set (correctly so) with correct length of leg, a deep ribcage and no excess fat from where I'm looking!! She is lovely

I am sure you know this so I'm not sure why you're asking the question but labradors were originally water dogs bred in Newfoundland to retrieve fishing nets from boats. This is partly why they are built the way they are. Well sprung ribs for buoyancy (that famous barrel shape which means that the maximum amount of lung is above the water) and a short coupled, powerful body for swimming and pulling.

If that's the case then one would hope that the vet would cover costs. Shame the dog has to undergo two GAs though.

Not a question I know the answer to. I will tell you what I think though. I think heavy set doesn't mean that they can't work. Think of heavily set work horses - I think labs should be similar. They aren't built for speed, they are built for steady work all day. Put too much fat on any dog and it will impair their ability to work. I do know that his mother who has great bone and muscle has more stamina, an effortless gait and enough rear end muscle to jump two feet up in the air (straight up). I can't say the same for my skinny, rangey lab who is very agile but doesn't seem to have the same stamina even when he's at his fittest. Gosh he's fast though and he can lurecourse like nobody's business when he's in the mood! However I am not about to make judgements based on my own dogs because that really doesn't do the argument justice.

If the dog has been desexed earlier they are often a bit longer in the legs because the stage at which growth plates close on the long bones is affected by hormones. I am not sure how hormones affect breadth of skeletal structure but I'm sure there must be an influence. Hormones definitely affect muscle bulk. I would expect a desexed dog to be less bulky generally. That is probably true although my dog and one of his brothers were desexed at the same time and his brother is way bigger, much broader and a huge head. They are the same height though. You can get several different sizes and builds of labs from one litter. There are lots of influencing factors. Mason isn't yet fully matured so he may be one of the slower to mature dogs in the litter. He may end up as big and broad or he may not - genetics are the key and only time will tell.

If the dog has been desexed earlier they are often a bit longer in the legs because the stage at which growth plates close on the long bones is affected by hormones. I am not sure how hormones affect breadth of skeletal structure but I'm sure there must be an influence. Hormones definitely affect muscle bulk. I would expect a desexed dog to be less bulky generally.

Thanks Simply assess your dog weekly - which we all should do anyway for signs of weight gain or loss. Adjust his food as necessary. It's a gradual process and depends on how active your dog is and how slowly he settles down (some never do!).

To illustrate SG's point.... I have two pictures of the same dog. I have posted these before to show how a dog can mature. Now this dog was a very chunky puppy with a lot of bone. He grew into an ugly skinny adolescent. I realised he would fill out because his dad was a big solid dog and his Grandfather was extremely solid. I didn't quite expect him to turn out how he did though! Have a look at his head in the second picture. Whaddya reckon his body is like? He has a big, solid body to match. No amount of starvation is going to make this dog look "thin" because his skeletal structure is broad and solid. It's his bloodlines and diet can't change that.

I agree with you SG. Posting pictures of a skinny adolescent puppy under the age of 2 doesn't always reflect how the dog will end up. The other thing is that every dog is built differently and must be assessed individually as to whether they are overweight or not. Sometimes photos don't display this very well. This is Mr Boney. His grey moustache is a giveaway to his age (he is seven). He certainly continued to fill out until he was 3 but he's still a long legged, rangey boy. This doesn't show his physique very well but you can get the idea from looking at his chest area and general size. I Boney... he is my heart dog.

The shit fights occur because people passionate about their point of view can't stick to forum rules. Personally I think these are subjects that should be discussed here. If people can debate the issues without becoming personal, there's much to be learned from hearing both sides of the argument. I've never gotten involved in the argument Poodlefan, but history shows that people seem unable to discuss the topic without it turning into a shit fight.

The quote isn't supposed to hilight type difference but the weight difference. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Same shyte different day though. The principle is the same. The 9kg MAKES him a different type. The question is, why does the show ring require a different type than the activity that the dog was bred to do? I will just say that nobody knows but it sure causes some fights on this forum.

Henk fit for show (37 kilos - 81.5 lbs) Henk fit for field trial (28 kilos - 61.7 lbs) WOOOAAHHH That's a whole debate that you don't even want to start on this forum. I am sure you can find some shitfights if you do a search on Show Vs Working dogs. It applies in many breeds - either different condition of the same dog or a different build of dog in the same breed used for working Vs showing. Border Collies, Kelpies, GSDs to name a few.

Mason will fill out as he matures - can take 3 - 4 years for this to happen. So he will get heavier looking even if he doesn't gain fat. How much heavier he gets depends on his bloodlines.

Gorgeous photo! Interesting to compare Misty to Ruby above. To my untrained eye, Misty has a much broader and deeper chest, bigger thighs and neck. Misty could perhaps be a touch skinnier (?), very hard to tell from a single photo, but then she is also a much more solid girl to begin with so maybe not. Ruby looks a fair bit younger in her photo too which makes a difference. Misty is a nicely bred and fully matured dog who looks like a labrador should. A well bred labrador is heavily set because they are a SOLID BREED. A deep chest does not equal an overweight dog. Ruby is just a puppy in that picture and is very light-on in bone which is normal for a puppy. Don't mistake the two! People are too willing to see a poorly breed lab with not enough bone and too much length of leg and say it's the best looking lab they've ever seen. I know because I own one. I also own a beautifully bred one who has correct length of leg and is a similar build to Misty with a beautiful deep chest and well sprung ribs. She is quite thin at the moment but her beautiful labrador coat hides her ribs - even though I can easily feel them. She just has so much coat and a nice amount of bone. She can be quite underweight but nobody ever notices her - they invariably comment on my poorly bred boy.

Yep! His vet sucks because now the dog will have to undergo two lots of sedation. Actually on second thoughts, vets aren't responsible for knowing the health testing requirements of individual breeds, but their owners sure are. He should have found out before he had the x rays done. That's an expensive mistake to make. Elbows are fast becoming a much bigger problem in Labs than hips have ever been (as Miss Monaro and I both have sadly found out).

Misty always reminds me of my Poppy. I think their parents were siblings (Helabar). Whenever I see her stacked I am struck by the likeness of their side profile.

Raw isn't necessarily money saving - especially not these days as the butchers have caught on! I have a skinny pointer here who requires copious amounts of food but I don't see him having to eat a lot as a negative to his general health (just to my wallet!). He requires 3 X what the labs do yet he weighs less and he always gets the fattiest bones I can find. As I said earlier in the thread he sometimes gets supplemented with high calorie puppy food a few times per week to help keep his condition. OH seems to think that a full body cast would probably work best just to stop the little bugger from moving all the time! He burns it quickly. Labs are the easiest dog to put weight on, I have to watch mine very carefully or he puts on a lot of weight, people probably think i am starving him when they hear what he eats a day Some labs are. They all have different calorie requirements.

Only if people get defensive about what they are feeding. Otherwise it's just an adult discussion right? I haven't seen anybody dictate to anybody else in this thread what to feed their dogs but I've seen lots of opinions expressed. Basing what you feed on your own individual dogs rather than the species as a whole is one area that people go very wrong (except in the case of geniune allergies).

Which is one of the reasons that feeding the same cereal based food daily is not ideal. A raw diet gives a variety day by day and is balanced over a week, sometimes a fortnight. It attempts to mimic what happens in the wild. Our dogs have not been domesticated long enough to have evolved to being fed cooked, cereal based food on a daily basis. We do better to treat them as if they were still living in the wild. We've manged to refine and control how a dog looks over the past couple of hundred years, but the evolution of the gut is a much slower process. These foods have only been around for several decades. According to some, dogs did much better on table scraps, even though they were often cooked.

Raw isn't necessarily money saving - especially not these days as the butchers have caught on! I have a skinny pointer here who requires copious amounts of food but I don't see him having to eat a lot as a negative to his general health (just to my wallet!). He requires 3 X what the labs do yet he weighs less and he always gets the fattiest bones I can find. As I said earlier in the thread he sometimes gets supplemented with high calorie puppy food a few times per week to help keep his condition. OH seems to think that a full body cast would probably work best just to stop the little bugger from moving all the time! He burns it quickly.

I actually do think that it's possible to identify a food as "rubbish" without having fed it. Just like I can look at junk food and don't have to have eaten it daily to know that it's not good for people to eat. To say that your dog "does well" on a food really doesn't look at the long term picture. You often can't see the effects of feeding your dog excessive amounts of an inappropriate food (ie grains) until they are older. Others have dogs with chronic ear and skin problems and go on feeding their dogs this cereal based food regardless. Last night I went to visit friends who have a beautiful little black brindle stafford pup. He's about 18 weeks old and the picture of health. Shiny coat, bright eyes, full of energy. It looks like his diet completely agrees with him (Optimum Puppy). That is until you spend some time with him and get a load of the stinking flatulence problem the dog has. OMG it was difficult to eat dinner at some moments with this dog in the room. So just as an example - the dog's digestive system is clearly struggling but you'd find it difficult to find a more healthy, shiny coated specimen of the breed. His owners thought his farts were normal but after discussion have decided to change his diet (I gave a few suggestions, including raw). I suspect that the dog is quite uncomfortable by the frequency and shocking odour of his emissions! Raw feeding is best. I know it is. That's my truth. There is very little science that goes into knowing that natural, raw food is what our dogs are supposed to be eating. If other people believe that feeding their dog cheap supermarket junk food is better for their dogs health then that is what they should be feeding. It really doesn't make a difference to my world. I will maintain my opinions though and air them when the subject arises. ;) ;) at Kitat! Frames on legs? :laugh:

Erin you must be very proud! You guys are doing fantastically well. Congrats to Sara and Hilary too! Hope it's a Gr Ch for Macey!