New puppy (chorky) in January, I wasn't this busy when I had new babies...gee whiz, shes clingy too which is hard to deal with at times but I do love her to death, even down on knees scrubbing floor LOL

I had always gone to a breeder for my Saints... Then I read an article about the number of dogs being abandoned becasue of the housing crisis. Many owner once a home has been foreclosed have no choice but to give up a loved family pet. Some less are actually abandoning them in the home, leaving them for the first entrant to find and hopefully care for.
After the loss of one of my Saints I was so torn... I wanted to pick my puppy and have the whole experience from puppy on up.... But the thought of one magnificent dog being put down ... all because I wanted a 6 month puppy experience , just seemed so self centered. I ended up with a rescue . Every day I wake up to that beautiful fuzzy face sitting patiently beside my bed ..just waiting for the first morning "go outside" ... and I feel like the luckiest person in the world.
Please do consider a rescue/adoption.

Labs are great -- and yellow ones show up in pictures, thus all the ads done with them -- all puppies are wonderful!!

We have a black English lab and he is super! He was 3 when we got him so didn't have a puppy to start with but he could not be more devoted and serve as a member of the family. He is about 20 pounds bigger than our American lab was
and hairier as well. I don't ask much of him as he is very well behaved...stay off my quilts is one rule but in return when I put my shoes on, it's "take a walk" time so he has his rules too. He is registered but I bought him off Craig's List from someone who couldn't take care of him so he's pretty close to a rescue dog.

Check the shelters first. Right now the bigger dogs like labs are being abandoned due to size and cost of feeding them. All of our rescue mixed breeds have had not one health problem from any of them. Our lab and other pure breed, nothing but health issues.

There are even rescue groups for the breeds of dogs you mentioned.

We went through this exact scenario last year. We lost our old and sweet yellow lab Toby and wanted a pup. Getting a shelter or rescue dog is wonderful, but we are in our 60s and knew this would probably be our last dog. My husband wanted an 8 week old that we could train from the start. It was a long process. Yellow labs are really popular. We live in the Northwest. I started online trying to find a breeder through state Labrador Retriever groups. There was nothing here in Montana so I started looking in a larger area and ended up using a Nortwest Retriever group that listed breeders in the Seattle and greater Washington area. I did a lot of research on each potential breeder because I was terrified of getting involved with a puppy mill. To make a long story short it took over a year for us to find a breeder that we liked who was breeding a litter at the time we could take a dog (my husband was still teaching then and we wanted a dog in the late spring or summer so that he could work with her during summer break). We wanted a pup that was raised in a home and was well socialized. The breeder we worked with sent us pictures every week after the litter was born; she was great. We went to get our pup Scout when she was 9 weeks old. She's just over a year now and is a joy. It had been 12 years since we had a puppy and this time we were smart: did crate training, took her to puppy classes and manners classes. Shortly after we got Scout we got a Corgi puppy - but that's a whole other story. Good luck with your search!

I would have your DH go to the hunting store (store that sells hunting equipment) and ask who has the best hunting dogs around. Then I would check with the vet and ask the same question. Sometimes it is not the breed so much as what they want then to do.
Sometimes the best hunting dogs end up having Heintz 57 puppies that hunt. My husband found that out.

You fur babies are just beautiful. I'm a cat person but I love labs and corgis.

There are lots of purebread dogs in the shelters that would love to go home with you. Just a suggestion that you might try there first. My friend is a rescuer..She has 23 dogs at this time. She works very hard to find them homes and the ones that don't find homes she keeps until they die. Her motto is........Saving one dog will not make a difference but it will make a world of difference to that one dog........Good luck with your search..