Living with Labradors

Labrador retrievers are beautiful dogs, lovely companions and sometimes, exceedingly stupid. Let me stress the exceedingly stupid part. As you may know, labs come in 3 colors (yellow, chocolate and black). Bones, a black lab, was the first to join our family. Although he has exhibited some stupid behavior, nothing prepared us for what was to come.

Enter Riker, the chocolate lab. Everyone warned us about getting a chocolate lab and tried to steer us away from that color morph. Color in labs is controlled by 2 genes which do not act independent of each other and are therefore epistatic. I was convinced that these 2 genes could not possibly contribute to all the negative traits which are commonly attributed to chocolate labs. I always believed that chocolate labs were selected by crappy owners based on color alone (because they are indeed pretty) who were not interested in putting the time into training.

Now that I am the owner of a chocolate lab, I may have to eat my words. We used all the same training techniques and tools as we had with Bones. In fact, we thought that after practicing on dog #1 that we should be better prepared for dog #2. But there is a distinct difference in the energy level and attention span between our 2 labs, one which I cannot attribute to age difference alone. Riker just never stops moving. I feel like if he were a child in elementary school, we would be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. He gets so excited for walks and play time that he pushes himself physically to the point of injury.

Case in point: After work this evening, I put the dogs in the car to drive the 4 km to Fortune Harbor Beach. Riker is still battling a soft tissue injury resulting in lameness from a hyper-extension of the right forelimb. As a result of this injury, the only exercise he is presently allowed is swimming. Both dogs were in the back of my hatchback car as we headed to the beach for a swim. I rolled down the windows as I always do because I know the dogs enjoy the breeze and it is impossible to cool off the car with the AC during such a short drive. As we approached the beach, Riker decides that he cannot wait for my slow ass driving and launches himself out the window. Exceeding stupid, right? I should mention that the window was only half rolled down, it does not go down all the way as a child-safety precaution. Well clearly the designer did not take into account the determination of my 65 lb retriever. Out the window he goes, touches down very roughly and takes off running for the beach. When I caught up with him, I found that he had road rash on his chin from the impact!

Some of my colleagues at work seem a little surprised by the fact that I try to keep the fence closed whenever the dogs are outside. I think that the foolishness exhibited by Riker this evening certainly suggests that if the fence were left open, it would not be long before Riker became a road pancake. Although he infuriates me, I am not ready to part with him just yet.