{"id":26038,"date":"2024-09-07T12:13:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-07T11:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelabradorsite.com\/?p=26038"},"modified":"2025-10-15T09:30:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T08:30:44","slug":"american-labrador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelabradorsite.com\/american-labrador\/","title":{"rendered":"American Labrador: Raising And Training A Lab From Working Lines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I have been around working retrievers for most of my life but it wasn\u2019t until I started talking to retriever trainers in the USA that I came across the phrase American Labrador.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You hear the term used more widely now, but in the UK it’s still more common for American Labs to be referred to as working line Labradors or field bred Labs. <\/p>\n\n\n

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American Labradors are athletic and agile. This is my field bred Lab Bella, jumping a fallen tree. She comes from a long line of working Labradors bred for Field Trials and as hunting companions<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

You can find some more information on the split between working and show lines of Labrador in this article: American Vs English Labradors<\/a>, but today I want to focus on celebrating the power, intelligence and agility of the American Labrador Retriever. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll talk a bit about the appearance and temperament of American Labs, and about how you can find, raise and train one of these awesome dogs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let\u2019s first take a brief look at where they come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original role of the working retriever<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The arrival of Labradors and other retrievers, was a direct response to the development of the use of guns. When guns first came on the scene they changed the face of game hunting. And dogs became more specialised to meet the needs of the newly armed game hunter! <\/p>\n\n\n

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Bella’s daughter retrieving a rabbit skin dummy. She has the narrower face and slim build typical of a field bred lab. The color is known as fox red, or red fox and is one of my favorites!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The first guns were cumbersome muzzle loaders and the dogs that worked to the gun were pointers and setters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These long legged dogs would hunt vast areas and seek out individual birds, pointing them out to their human companions who could then approach within range to shoot the bird when flushed. The bag might be one or two birds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the advent of faster breech loading guns and the arrival of driven game shooting in the UK, a new type of dog was needed. A day\u2019s shooting could now bag many birds at a time, and with a pair of breech loading guns and a loader, shots could be fired repeatedly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dog that could remain calm in the midst of such excitement and retrieve bird after bird, without disturbing the game in adjacent strips of land, was required. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the retriever breeds were developed and bred for this specialised job. And of course the dog that reigned supreme at this task, was our beloved Labrador Retriever. And it was these working dogs that were exported to the USA to form the foundations of all the lines of both field and show labs that you see there today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s worth noting that this is a breed that has made the transatlantic journey several times in their history. The first Labs were bred from St Johns Water dogs imported from Newfoundland having originally been taken there<\/em> from the UK by emigrating fishermen! You can read more about the history of the breed by following this link: Origins And History Of The Labrador Retriever.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern field Labrador<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On arriving in the USA, the Labrador Retriever rapidly became a popular hunting companion, but the passion for exhibiting dogs in the show ring was growing in popularity as it was in the UK. The breed soon became split on both sides of the atlantic into Field and Show lines, and in the USA these two divisions acquired their popular names of American and English Labradors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern American Lab is built for speed. This is a lean, keen dog that looks every inch the athlete. Most will lack the heavy, blocky head that you see on Labs in the show ring, and will have longer legs and a more slender appearance overall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some would argue that the American Lab doesn\u2019t meet the breed standard. This doesn\u2019t bother their many passionate fans who are more concerned with the ability of their dogs in the field, than their ability to win a beauty pageant. They might in turn argue that the breed standard is being misinterpreted by the show dog community. It\u2019s a debate that never grows old! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are American Labs like?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many Labs from working lines come from breeders that compete in Field Trials. These are competitions that test the ability of the Labrador to mark and retrieve over long distances and challenging terrain. And the features of the modern working Labrador reflect those challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are dogs that are utterly invested in co-operating with their human handler, responsive to whistles and hand signals at hundreds of yards away. And capable of persisting and pushing through tremendous challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most people are more interested in how a Lab will fit into their family life than how fast they can run or how pretty they are. And some love the look of the English Lab but want a hunting companion. So I suppose the questions we need to ask here are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n