My DD has a yellow lab, Charlie. He's about 1 1/2 years old and such a good dog. Let's the kids lean on him, the toddler pulls his fur, etc but he never snips or growls. Just looks at us like "help me"....
Anyway they took him with them to a friends new country house which happens to have a large deep pond in the back. Charlie saw it and took off, jumped in and kept swimming around. When he got tired he put his 2 front paws on the dock ladder, caught his breath, and took off again!
They couldn't get him out to go home.
They had table scraps, a bone, treats, etc. Nothing would get him out of the water.
So they left him at the friends house over night. They said he didn't come out for a couple more hours. Then he zonked out and slept all night.
This morning he whined at the back door till they opened it and off he ran back to the water.
Is this just Charlie or do Labs LOVE water?

My DS and DDIL have a lab and her parents have two and they love, love, love the pond.

Oh yes they love water!!!!!! Good luck getting him home. Your friends may have a new dog.

All retrievers are water dogs, it's what they're bred to do. Yes, they love the water. Labs are especially good at retrieving ducks from the water because they have a very soft mouth. (that just means they don't bite down on them)


Then again, it could be that old Charlie just needs a rest from getting laid on, his fur pulled, etc. lol


Labs also have a reputation for being excellent with children and families.

Labs are water lovers!!!!
I currently have 3 of them and they love the water. There's just not place nearby for them to swim!

We had a dog that was half lab and she absolutely hated water. Would walk the long way around puddles, etc.

That's what we're afraid of... :)
The kids love love love him, and the rest of us do too. Best dog we've ever had in our family.

:-D :-D :-D

We have a yellow lab named Charlie too. He can swim like a fish............so cute that yours doesnt want to come out of the water.

Our dog Linus is part lab with those big webbed paws. He climbs the pool ladder and jumps into the pool, swims leisurely around a few laps and then climbs back out.

My son has a lab and it is the same with her. She loves the lake. They have to force her to come out. One time she got what the Vet. said is limp tail. It is from swimming to much. They use their tail as a rudder. She could not sit on her butt for about a week. So now he really keeps a eye on her when they go to the lake. She is one silly but great dog. He taught her to shake when she gets to the shore so she doesn't get everyone wet. It's so funny. When she comes out he just says shake and she does, then she comes up to the cabin.

A vet told me that labs have a higher body temperature than most other breeds, that is why they like water. It is very important that labs be able to get in to some kind of water in the summer even if it is a kiddie pool or a sprinkler.

They live to swim.

They love it! I had a Cairn Terrier that thought she was a lab too. In the summer we kept a tub of water out for her to lay in. We would throw rocks in the water here at the beach and she would go nuts and go in to find them. Stick she would retrieve.

We had a yellow lab who was actually white for many years. He loved the water and would swim for hours. My late husband would take him fishing and he never bothered the fish that he caught until one day...I guess he got curious and ate one whole. I know it is really bad for dogs to eat raw fish, but we were lucky he didn't get sick.

We also had a Chesepeake Bay Retriever who was even worse. In order to keep her out of my small pond we had to fence it in. I bought her a kiddy pool and she used it all summer long. If we threw something in she would bring it out. When we used to go camping it was hard to keep other people's children from throwing rocks in the lake because Sadie would spend as much time as she needed to to find the rock. Then she chipped a tooth and we had to get really serious. We had her 15 years.

Haven't you heard about the lady that heard a scratch on her door, looked out and saw a big yellow dog. She opened the door, the dog walked in, walked around, found a small rug laid down and went to sleep for about 2 hours. Then he woke up went to the door and she let him out. The next afternoon the same thing happened. After about a week she decided to find out what was going on so she put a note on his collar that read, "Do you know that your dog is coming to my house every afternoon, sleeping for two hours then coming home?" The next day when the dog came back there was a note on his collar that read, "Do you know that he lives in a house with 2 cats, 6 kids under the age of 10, a grouchy grandpa, and two other adults? My question is can I come too?" LOL

I love that story!

Funny story! Almost too close to reality here.....

I'll tell my DD about this just in case the dog/fish shows signs of it. Thanks

They love water. Anyway every one I have known has. You are right. Part fish.

We had two black lab "blends"..pound puppies...and they both hated the water. Puddles in the back yard after a storm would freak them out! When we knew a storm was coming we would have to make sure they would go out to do their business or they wouldn't go at all. Was really stressful for them if we had an early morning shower...get the picture?

That story is SO cute!!!!!!!! When I was a kid, our neighbors balck lab used to spend all here time at our house. We had a house full of kids, and her owner was a single guy. She loved us. I remember him calling on the phone and asking "Is Lucky there?", and my Mom said, do you want me to put her on the phone???? LOL!

Most love water. There is alway's the exception, but Charlie is not.

I used to have a dog, Winnie, who was half poodle, half schnauzer. She absolutely loved water too. She would go in the water and swim and swim. She would follow me up the diving board and jump in after me. She would go underwater and bring up rocks and old bottles etc. I loved that dog. She was one of my Mother's dog's pups. We got her in 1972 and she died at 13 years. I still miss that dog. She was the best dog ever.

I had a lab and we camped near the ocean when we use to take her to the salt pond. On the road to the salt pond she use to start crying with excitement. She love the water.

I grew up with the most lovable German Shepherd/Collie cross. She was one of those you just had to pull out of the water. She also looked after us kids. Where we usually swam, there was a very gradual deepening of the water, but my granparents lived on a river where the water suddenly dropped to about 10 feet in depth, just about 3 feet in. She swam there, too, but we usually didn't. One day we did, and my 10 year old cousin was first in. Well, she raced down to the river as he approached it, and just as he was ankle deep, she arrived, and grabbed the back of his bathing suit with her teeth. He freaked, we laughed. She was saving him from the deep water. LOL Once we all got in, she got in and circled us like Momma Duck, just in case.... LOL

It could be six of one and half a dozen of another. I think your dog being a lab does love the water but, although he lets the children abuse him and that is what it is I am sure he does not relish this. Children should be taught to treat any animal with respect. That means they should be taught what to do and what not to do with the animal and its fur etc.

Mine loved to swim or sit or lay in water but hated a bath - silly but true.
Blessings,
Scherrie

My retriever didn't want to retrieve. He would go into the water only ankle deep, chasing small rocks and sticks, then bite into the water, making it look like he had planned it that way, too funny. I miss him.

I had a foster named Niko he was adopted out a few months ago and I got a call from the new mom. They took Niko to the lake in town and there was a bulldog(? her name) there that was chasing a ball in the water and bringing it back to his owner. Niko jumped in the water scaring his new papa half out of his mind. While Dad on on shore frantically stripping off his shoes thinking Niko is going to drown, Niko is very calmly swimming out to the bulldog took the ball right out of its mouth and swims back to shore very proudly showing his dad what he found. They can't keep him out of the water now.
Niko is a 6lb chihuahua. :-)

Believe me this dog in not abused! He is loved every inch of the way. I'm sorry you misunderstood my description of how good he is with the kids.

This happened to my black lab, Nali once!! We couldn't figure out what was the matter at first then finally it clicked that she had done a bunch of swimming for a couple of days before this!

mine are the same, love the water, hate a bath or to be sprayed by the hose!!!

Simon the lab dives down to retrieve toys from the deep end of the swimming pool. then he climbs the ladder to come out and give it back so you can throw it in again. my mother's dog, a scottie, hated to get wet but had to follow the labs into the pool, so he rode a surfboard. silly dog.

You may have to take him swimming pool shopping to get him to come home :D

Our first cat would get in the bathtub with me. She loved the water

I think they love water.

He may weigh only 6lbs. but he has a ton of heart.

We have two of those, although they are Chocolate Labs! I swear that our Molly, who is eight, can smell the water before she even see it. When she was younger we used to have to keep her on a really long lead when she went swimming in the river 'cause she wouldn't come back for nothing and we were afraid she would get to tired and not be able to swim back to shore. A couple of years ago we were at the Colorado River and someone had to bring her back on a SeaDoo. We thought we had lost her but as soon as she hit the shore she was back at it. We haven't let her near the water since. And she won't get to go swimming again until she has a life jacket!

My son has a Black Lab, about a year old. He bought the dog one of those kiddie pools about ankle high, so the dog could cool off. They have a bigger pool for the kids, about waist high. It kept getting all sorts of black hair in it. One night my son walked out on the back screen room and saw Lilly shoot up and into the pool, play around in the water and come sliding out like a seal! Night time is her favorite time, when no one is watching!

We had a black lab for 13 yrs. He was a water dog, also. Have you ever seen them dive? My kids use to fill cans with rocks and throw it in the water. If he ran out of breath, he come up for air and have a stick or something and the kids would say, no,go down again and get the can and he always found it.
We took him to the beach and the seagulls were taunting him. They would land on the water, he would swim out to them and so on and so on until he was so far out he looked like a black dot. That time we thought we lost him, but he floated back. I loved that dog.