Get to know your
Labrador Retriever.

What is inside the Labrador Retriever

This edition combines three parts in one file. The total page count includes general content, the breed-specific section and the planner; it does not refer only to breed-specific text.

1. General foundations

A reading foundation covering home preparation, everyday care, nutrition, training and life together. These chapters are shared across the collection and provide context before the breed-specific section.

2. A section devoted to the Labrador Retriever

History, profile and breed-specific care topics organized into ten chapters. Browse the list below and read a short history excerpt to get a feel for the writing style.

3. Printable planner

Pages for your records, details, dates and memories within the same PDF. Print only the sheets you need. This is not an app, and fillable form fields are not advertised.

Your breed-specific chapters

1. Breed history and origins
2. Breed profile and characteristics
3. Health predispositions discussed in the guide
4. Feeding by life stage
5. Energy and activity
6. Temperament and life together
7. Physical care and coat
8. Care calendar
9. Observations organized by body area
10. Training and socialization

A short excerpt to begin

From the history chapter in this edition: a short reading sample.

Few breeds carry a name as geographically misleading as the Labrador Retriever — because the breed did not originate in Labrador at all. Its true birthplace was the island of Newfoundland, on the cold, storm-battered fishing grounds of Canada's eastern coast, roughly five centuries ago. When European — primarily Portuguese and English — fishermen settled the Grand Banks in the 1500s, they brought dogs with them that gradually interbred with local animals to produce a compact, water-tolerant working dog known as the St. John's Water Dog, sometimes called the 'lesser Newfoundland' or 'true Newfoundland' to distinguish it from the larger, heavier breed we know today by that name.

Excerpt from chapter 20 · History and origins