re: Black lab with white markings

I was replying to the thread in general. Not to you specifically... happens often on this mesaage board format

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Looking at buying a puppy. She has white on chest and around lip. Is this normal? Supposedly the mom is yellow and dad is black

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Depends on what you want the dog for. If general pet or even hunting, you may end up with the best and most healthy dog ever produced. For breeding? Different problem altogether.

Chimera's are incredibly cool. The ability of an animal to express 2 separate genomes within it's own body and germ line essentially gives you 2 animals in 1.

There's a funny story of a chimera stallion they tried to register, but the genetic testing kept coming back female.

What happens with Chimera X Chimera?

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What happens with Chimera X Chimera?

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Invisible dog

This is exactly what I epicly failed at saying, per usual. And yeah, this is not an OT approved length post, but in the end, I don't really give a damn if a single soul reads it: I will have of said my peace. I don't dabble in this stuff; I'm passionate about it. I'm good for about 3 posts a day, and so I go for quality not quantity, but I'll give the TLDR out of compassion: All dogs are as capable as the owner, but to pick out exceptions to the rule and use them to suggest that it makes poor standards "okay" (EXCLUDING THE SINGLE BOLO MARK ON THE CHEST), is dangerous and wrong. Lowering of standards is becoming commonplace in today's offended society, and it's pissing on hundreds of years of sportsmen's hard work to develop a breed. I want the same lab ten years from now as the lab I had 20 years ago, and standards are how that happens. Don't tell me, a sportsman, that I ought to be okay with the same standards as the lapdog owners. They can have their dirt diggers, and I'll have my refined killer. One is not like the other.

Disclaimer: I'm an absolute pussy with dogs. Mutt or thoroughbred, I love em, and a life without dogs is a sad life for me. I ain't talking chit about anyone's dog here, guys. I love training and messing with dogs as much, maybe even more than some here, and I'll never talk chit about a man's dog because that's talking chit about the man and that's what women do. It's grounds for an azz whoopin, and the last time I was close to giving one was in the middle of a pine thicket hunting wild quail when another guy's dog was performing poorly (only knew pen raised birds), and so he commenced to picking apart my 6 month olds pup's deficiencies since my pup was showing his up. I let it slide the 1st time, but the 2nd time he did it was his last.

I digress on that, but back to issue at hand:

Regarding the question of silver labs, I have my informed feelings on them & I'll leave it at that, but I'm gonna use em to make my point. One thing I do know is that folks love them; a friend's choc male sired a litter and one was silver. I could've sworn it was dusted with gold though, due to the demand and price paid for it. That's a profit margin that hasn't gone unnoticed, and that means money gets in the way of standards: Because of their demand and price (and soccer moms), puppy mills are mixing the weimaraner into lab bloodlines, calling them silver, and opening up "specialty" kennels left and right. "Bullchit!" you say? You can go down that rabbithole yourself and see that it (and other examples) are very real things. Commonly known about, as a matter of fact, in the training community.

That bleeds over into the entire concept of what I'm talking about with my original and subsequent replies: nowadays, money talks, standards be damned. (Buy your duck at the store you neanderthal.) There must be standards that WE the sportsmen, cattlemen, etc.- the ones who work these dogs and depend on their specialty trades- must adhere to so as to protect the breed and our needs. The AKC & UKC ain't gonna do it, and the backyard breeders DAMN sure ain't gonna do it- WE gotta do it. WE are the ones who come from a bloodline of men who, just like the dogs beside them, evolved to depend on a specific set of standards that we rely on so that they work right the 1st time, every time. Just like a trusty tool being replaced with a new & identical one, it must work like the last one. We expect that. Standards are how that happens.

So let's not cherry pick some anomalies along the way and act like that's the standard that we should all be looking and striving for (and be okay with), because that's disingenuous and it's a piper that we, the originators AND gatekeepers of the working breeds, do NOT want to have to pay. A non-durable tool is a chit tool, and chit breeding standards breed chit durability, and that won't cut it out in the trenches. It won't matter back at camp or fireside, but it'll for damned sure matter when the sleet is sideways, and when the ducks are falling, when the water's cold & deep and when the crippled ones are getting away. A thoroughly bred labrador retriever at his master's side is the greatest conservation tool that a wildfowler could ever hope to contribute to the sport. Make no mistake: If you're a working breed man looking for a working breed pup, then puppy mills, backyard (in)breeders, and even some show dog kennels are your enemies with a singular motive: MONEY.

Give me a Leake County, Mississippi mutt to pick up tundra swans with class and drive over a registered, barrel shaped, inbred, spotted lapdog any day of the week. Sure, it's a shame that he'll never get to sire a bloodline of any significance since folks won't pay for the pedigree, but in many ways that's a good thing for the rest of us. The latter dog is the one I take issue with because in all of life there must be standards, rules, and guidelines, or it all goes to hell. We can't let biological entropy run wild just because some breeders & buyers with good intentions don't get their feelings hurt or we'll be sorry. A single bolo spot on the chest is not a strike against a dog's breeding or skill, but anything else should- AND IS- grounds for halting its bloodline, at least in the community whose worldview consists of working the breeds as they were designed. We must stick to standards to protect our interests and needs.

Any refutation of that is one that I will never agree with. I depend on the breed's standards and traits too much to sit by idly and watch as money, deception and political correctness destroy one of God's greatest gifts to a man and centuries of hard work.

I've owned/ own mutts and lap dogs, and they're great hounds...for the living room floor, but when the covey is running, when the ducks are falling, when I need a good boy to go on "BAACCK!" and to do it come hell or high water, sleet or snow, for days on end and year after year, then time-and-time again I reach for the same dog that my father had, and the one that his father before him had; I reach for the thoroughbred, and nothing less will do.

And you should too.