British, Irish, American, Chinese and Indian; they are all just Labs, they are the most versatile dog in the world, and they all have come from the same foundation stock as such they all have the same capabilities to succeed in any venue in any country, selective breeding for certain traits or not. Most of all and what we often fail to remember as we continuously clump these dogs, as being show (pretty yet slow), British(calm and stoic), American Field (Driven and Hard), is that every dog is an individual, every dog has some excellent traits and some that need work, No Perfect dog for any venue was ever born perfect, they were born with potential; the overall inherit versatility of the Labrador breed, and a few extra quirks from their parents. However we fail to realize
our part in all of this, we see certain dogs in certain venues, because we ourselves take that potential and develop certain traits. We utilize methods that empathize this over that, to place a dog in a mold of what it should be to succeed in our chosen venue and we often remove individual dogs that don't fit that mold. Yet the lines still cross back and forth and they still all trace back to that foundation stock.
What it all comes down to, I've trained American Field (some are hard and driven, most are normal labs), I've trained a few imports,(some are calm, but they also have the potential to be maniacs, most are normal labs), I've trained show (some are slow with no instinct, most are just normal labs, which were never been developed toward the sport side). Point of it is you want a lab for your venue you buy a puppy from that stock (stack the odds a bit), but we do the Breed and the Keepers of the Breed an
Extreme Disservice clumping dogs as being this or that. They are still all Labradors, they were developed for versatility, spectacular dogs for any venue can come from anywhere. That's the Point of having a Lab.
There's Something to be said of a breed where, Joe-Blow with no real dog experience (aka Me starting out); can take a $200 penny-saver Labrador bitch, train her on the weekends (with Water-Dog
). Go out and run these HT< FT<OB<A thingies, hunt-track (birds, deer, people) Retrieve (rabbits, decoys, & beer). The dog is very capable and very happy to of do whatever is asked, sleeps on the couch, and rides in the passenger seat the other ~90% of the time.