[nagdu] Chocolate labs as guides?

Tue Mar 10 07:06:38 UTC 2009

Linda,

I've only ever met one White Shepherd, and he was fantastic.  I went
absolutely nuts over him.  That may have had something to do with the fact
that he was the only thing I could see on that dark and drizzly afternoon.
/smile/

I didn't know about Leader Dogs starting with dobies.  I had neve reven
conceived of a dobie guide before I saw that one who so enthralled me on the
streets of Portland a few years back.  I thought the breed was being
introduced like poodles and some others to address allergy isuues or
something.  Hmm...  The local red dobie was at the part yesterday, and he
even played with Mitzi some while I cheerfully grilled his owners about his
temperament and whatnot.  Mitzi is under orders never to grow old or die,
but you know how stubborn she is.  I may just decide my "must have" breed is
dobie, with shepherd bumped down to second or third choice.  I do adore my
poodle, and being a sci-fi nut have "clone Mitzi" as a tentative plan A.
/smile/  Most days, anyway.  There are still days when Plan A for Next Time
is "get something sensible.  *Not* a poodle.  /grin/

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of lindagwizdak at peoplepc.com
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 3:49 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Chocolate labs as guides?

Hi Brent,
The White German Shepherd is recognised by the United Kennel Club (UKC) as a

seperate breed from the German Shepherd. Kind of like the real big shepherds

whose breed name escapes me! I found a book about the White German shepherd 
at a second hand bookstore back in the early '90s.  I also found a book 
about the history of Leader Dogs for the Blind in a book stall at a local 
dog show.  Thier early dogs were Dobies. There is a picture in the book 
taken around the 1970s of a Leader class and a student had a White Shepherd 
Dog!  I haven't heard of any schools issuing a White Shepherd dog.  Anyone 
else know of any?

Linda and Landon
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brent Reynolds" <burddawg at bellsouth.net>
To: <sbgreenlaw at gmail.com>; <nagdu at nfbnet.org>; 
<gdui-friends at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 5:56 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Chocolate labs as guides?

>
> I don't think there really are any issues with chocolate Labs when it 
> comes
> to what does or does not make for good guide dog work, vis-a-vis Labs of 
> any
> other color.
>
> To say that it makes sense that chocolates may suffer from skin conditions
> and allergy type things more than other Labs, and to confirm it based on a
> sampling of two out of a population of three is quite a stretch.
>
> The chocolate Labrador from The Seeing Eye that I had shed less and had
> fewer skin problems and less dry skin problems, and less scratching than
> most of my other Labs, all of whom were black.  My current dog is a Lab /
> Golden crossbreed and the Lab component of that cross was most likely a 
> very
> dilute yellow, since this dog's coloration has been described as, light 
> tan,
> beige, creamy vanila, and even white.
>
> While it may be possible that a goodly number of chocolate Labs may carry
> other genes that predispose them to certain skin conditions, it is still
> true that the genes that influence color in Labradors have no effect on
> anything other than coloration.  To extrapolate a supposition or
> unscientifically derived comparison across unrelated species, such as
> squirrels compared to dogs, is not, well, is not good science.
>
> I would be more willing to speculate that you don't see very many
> chocolate-colored Labs as guide dogs for the simple reason that the 
> schools
> just don't usually have very many of them in proportion to the other two
> major colorations.
>
> Color is one of the easiest traits to breed into or out of a line of dogs
> when several different colors are possible.  Now, that might take a good 
> bit
> longer in a breed such as the Rottweiler which comes overwhelmingly in
> black.
>
> If you read the writings of Konrad Lorenz, who's work was considerably 
> more
> popular in the 1950's and 1960's than it is today, you can read that in
> Germany, white was considered enough of a serious defect in the German
> Shepherd Dog breed that white pups were routinely eliminated from the
> populations, usually by unceremoniously drowning the newborn  white pups.
> Yet, in the good old USA, fanciers of White German Shepherds have been
> lobbying for years to get kennel clubs to recognize them as a separate 
> breed
> to be known as the American White Shepherd.
>
> Among the old-time duck hunters fifty or more years ago, it was a commonly
> held conventional wisdom that among Labradors, blacks were the best,
> smartest, and easiest to train.  Yellows were said to be somewhat stupid,
> and chocolates, which they called "livers", were said to be somewhat
> stubborn and harder to train.  Nobody ever produced any measurable or
> otherwise verifyable proof for those gems of conventional wisdom.
>
>
>
> Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA  USA
> Email: burddawg at bellsouth.net  Phone: 1-404-814-0768
>
>
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