Labrador Retriever

[Ladeira]

This may be a weird topic, but I really wanted to start this discussion as I haven't seen many about it.

 

First, I'd like you to see my dog (Rony):

 

 

He is simply one of the cutest pets I've ever seen, as he acts friendly and shows some respect to his owners, he loves to be cared of and all that fawning we usually deliver to the dogs. In spite of being very friendly, we always observed he's extremely strong.

 

He is VERY jealous. It was worse before he got 3 years old. When he came to us, he used to destroy anything that we had taken care of in front of him. Specially plants. Only those ones we had taken care of when he was looking at us.

 

So, by the time he was 2 years old, we picked up 2 rabbits, and kept both in a cage inside a locked room (out of home, behind the garden). After some weeks taking care of the rabbits, we noticed he started presenting some uncommon excitement when near to that room we stocked the cage. So that, there was a day, I woke up and found the room forced open, the iron cage totally deformed and truncated, and the dead rabbits open on the floor. After obvious observation, we realized he spent whole night forcing the door (we could see it by the uncountable scratches on the door)... and not enough, he destroyed the iron cage and opened it (not by its door!), cutting the iron. It scared us a lot that time.

 

Another weird behavior was observed when my old dog died (a female German Shephead dog). He got desperated and started crying, and then he tried to wake her up by moving her head, then scratching it, then totally deforming it. As he was trying to wake her up, we thought it was ok, but it made us think he has no idea how strong he is.

 

Well... he still seems to be very sweet and lovely. But after a little search, I found out that the first partial face transplant was done on a patient who had her face mauled by a Labrador Retriever. The patient had taken medicines to sleep... and as the dog tried to wake her up, he destroyed part of her face. Very similar to what happened in my house.

 

Therefore, a 22-years-old woman in my city was bitten on face by her Labrador Retriever and will have to do surgery to repair the damage.

 

Question is:

Is it really free of danger keeping a dog at home? Is the risk really worthtaking?

 

Still, I would never abandon my dog, but I can't feel 100% comfortable with all this information.

[Moontanman]

Any dog can be a danger, i have basset hounds, hard to find a dog with a friendlier disposition but my absolute favorite one who saved my son from possibly serious injury and loved everyone tore off my lower lip when i unexpectedly got in his face. Any dog can be dangerous, they can also be life savers and the best friend you can ever have but they have to be taught discipline (not by beating them either) and you have to respect their boundaries. I love my basset hounds, I've had seven of them over the last 34 years but i know that even a little rat bog will bite if provoked in the correct way....

[Sisyphus]

Well obviously any breed of dog could be dangerous, but in my experience (I've known probably over a dozen labs), I've never heard of any being actually aggressive towards humans (or even other dogs, for that matter). They are absurdly friendly. But yes, they are sometimes hyper, and they can destroy stuff, and when they're excited they're not really aware of their strength. They're very playful and sometimes try to play with humans the same way they play with dogs, and that can involve jumping up and mouthing (sort of but not really biting). The story of chewing on the drugged woman's face is not surprising, honestly, but I would be extremely surprised if that was aggressive, and not just worriedly trying to wake her up.

[padren]

I've found labs to be really quite friendly and gentle - as a kid it was surprising that they could play with balloons and not pop them, which was explained as their teeth are bred to be soft because, as retrievers, they are bred so as to not break the skin of the bird they are retrieving. I did have one that killed a neighbor's chicken once as a kid, but it didn't even break the skin - the bird died of fright. The biggest risk generally is in vet bills if they develop bad hips, which is relatively common in labs.

 

All in all though, any dog can exhibit just about any behavior due to much more impressive factors than breed - and some of that behavior could be extreme with regards to the rabbits. I can't speak with authority but maybe they get worked up over "small game" or something. Mine would mess with the cat a little (no lethality fear), but the cat would always win. Breed tells you more about what is more likely than not to expect, but any individual dog can break the curve. They generally do take well to training I believe (they are exceptionally loyal and eager to please), and by the sounds of it you may want to look at some training options for dealing with behavior problems.

[ParanoiA]

Ah, my absolute favorite breed of dog, without question. I've had several labs over the years. None of them bit a single person, ever. They are the hardest to let go of when their time comes because they are so damn loyal, and we rarely earn it or deserve their admiration.

 

However, there was one time when Skipper, my present old man lab, cornered a Spaniel in our kitchen and lashed out at him several times. I had to get in the middle of that, and of course, Skipper completely submitted to me and it was ok. I have no idea what happened, but I can only guess the Spaniel was up to something (that I apparently, was not "handling") so Skipper stepped up.

 

I completely agree with the others on this, there is nothing inherently aggressive about labs toward humans, at all. I can easily see their endearing qualities causing a rare problem and accidentally hurting their owner, though. Not sure I'd really call that a risk, but it's definitely worth it. Dogs are a net benefit to us, hands down. Hopefully we are that for them too.

 

But little furry critters that run around like dog toys will become dog toys. Sorry, but just like human children, they are hard on their toys.

[Moontanman]

I have seen some aggression in labs, I always figured it was the result of poor breeding, many dog breeds suffer from poor breeding in these days of puppy mills and inbreeding in backyards. I prefer a dog with a little aggression, i don't want a dog that goes looking for trouble but if he finds I want him to be able to respond to it. I have a basset hound now you could skin alive with a rusty knife and he would just cry and howl...

 

My basset hounds were always very protective of my children and would never allow strange adults in the yard but they never every looked twice at neighborhood kids. Once two pit bulls attacked my son on the side walk in front of my house and my basset hound pushed a chain link fence gate apart to get to the them to defend my child and he ran both the pit bulls off. He was a pretty special case when it came to basset hounds, (he weighed 90 pounds and had very little fat, almost too big to be a basset hound) or even dogs, one of those once in a life time type dogs, very smart very strong and very protective of anything he thought belonged to me. I had another red-bone hunting hound that though the had to drag everything i touched up onto my deck and pile it in front of the door, he destroyed several prize bonsai trees doing this but he was a sweet dog and very smart as well. (one morning i went out side after splitting a load of fire wood the previous day to find it all piled in front of my back door.)

 

 

I've seen this type of behavior to varying degrees in many dogs both in my bassets and other dogs, intelligence in dogs is very hard to measure, some dogs are smart but have little desire to please anyone but themselves and bassets tend to be in that category, Labs seem to be at the opposite extreme and tend to live to please their masters but as I indicated any dog can suffer from poor breeding and all dogs are different.

[John Cuthber]

"they can destroy stuff,"

In particular, living stuff.

"dead rabbits open on the floor"

Of course Labradors can be dangerous.

[Moontanman]

I've had three cats that figured out that if they din't run from the basset hounds the hounds weren't interested in them. They often slept with the bassets, but anything that ran would be chased and when the hounds were excited by the chase the animal was in trouble...