Wife and I are searching for a lab. Do any of you have experience with hunting/training both male and female labs? Do you have a preference in the gender?

I prefer females.

All my dogs are females because they tend to have less problems with marking (peeing), etc. But, I think it's more of a personal preference.

Check out tripletretrievers.com. Owner's name is Toby. He has trained many junior hunters and owns a senior hunter that he trained. Works very hard for his clients. Check it out.

I like male labs better, had better luck with males than i have with females, even several that were brought to me to train by clients that were out of the same litter...just personal preference.

I love my male for he is what he is. A spitting image of me, always testing for the upper hand. Constantly he waits and tries to be the leader of the pack.

Now my bitch is absolutely submissive. If I get up to get a glass of water she is right behind me. When I walk through a door she never gets there first. She waits to be invited through a door.

All my pups in the future will be bitches. They are so much easier to train.

My pup is a bitch as well, I find most of the time females are a little smaller & softer dogs. JMO

Hey WAL1809, are you offering any snake avoidance training sessions before Sept. 1st?

It is personal preference, I always like females myself, I like their demeanor better, males are always trying to hump you and flashing you with their junk, plus males slobber more.

I prefer females, females go into heat twice a year. Males are in heat 365. Both are great for hunting, I just choose females.

There's a lot of truth to this. My male does the same thing, but I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world!

Sometimes I wish I had a bitch that was submissive and not so hard headed. But other times, I enjoy kicking back with a beer hanging out with my bud!

yea he is, check the gun dog section

I prefer females, always had great luck with them. But my current one is as hardheaded and stubborn as I am

Just ask Zack

Have only ever had a male. Hard headed sometimes but full of drive. I think another thing you should think about is what size dog do you want. Mine weighs 105 lbs. Not the most agile fellow out there. But has the heart of a lion.

He is 7 and so I am thinking about getting another dog within the next year. Wife wants me to get a female for the simple reason that I can pick one out that should weigh around 55-60 lbs. It's like half of my current lab. Just saying you may want to weigh your options

Cable if your hunting out of a boat, it can be much easier for a female to climb into the boat for many reason, weight and overall size just being a couple.

I own both male and female dogs and train both male and female dogs. I prefer males. It all comes down to personal preference. There are some differences between male dogs and female dogs outside of the physical characteristics, but there are some general personality differences that most people do not notice. They are not set in stone, just the different sexes on average tend to follow these characteristics. Such as, males generally are by your side and laying by your feet at home. Females generally will lay in the other room and just come to check in on you from time to time.

Downside to female dogs being in heat, they can come into heat during hunting season. Takes out the opportunity for there to be more than one dog if the other dog is male. Also, some female dogs do not perform as well while in heat. Some just become plain stupid. Most of the dogs at the kennels in heat end up staying in the kennel run and not getting trained because of this. Also, if you plan to run any hunt tests, she could come into heat during the hunt test season and she can't run while in heat. These reasons are why I mainly choose males, esp. if I only have one dog. After one dog, I don't mind females because if she is out of commission due to a heat cycle, I have my males to fall back on.

Eric W.

Good point, however if you shop around for a pup and get a pup from smaller parents, you can find a manageable male. I like the smaller dogs myself. My lab male is only 62lbs and compact. My two male Goldens are between 55 and 60lbs. Just a bit over what I would say an average female dog weighs if not equal to.

I do know a lab we call the "nutless wonder", lol. He snagged his testicles on a barb wire fence and ripped them off. OUCH!!!!!

Good points Eric. I think the heat cycle is over rated as this can be fixed easly, seeing how most of us aren't breeders anyway. Personal preference plays the biggest role, most of the time for the Avg. hunter.

yep, I had mine fixed because we didn't want to worry about that sort of thing...I'm not a breeder, I'll leave that to the experts

Same here, my female is spayed and she is a sweet intelligent dog. A little softer than some, but that's just fine with me.

I have ever only hunted out of a boat one time. And yes it was hard to get Mav's huge arse back into the boat. LOL. Eric is right as well, guess I could look for a smaller male. Just not sure which way to go yet. But def looking for a pup coming up at the end of the season.

I do believe the most agile dogs I have been around are females. Guy's dog Molly was an exciting athlete to watch at the THF BBQ, she could run circles around my dog all day.

Molly is full of energy, but one of the best behaved dogs I've worked with. Guy did well by her

My male weighs 65 lbs., he is lean and mean. He also old now.

This thread is interesting to me b/c I never had his nuts cut. I think that probably has kept him lean and healthy. It also makes him aggressive though, if he's around another uncut male, it's on, guaranteed.

What are the various opinions about whether to cut 'em or not?

If Tuit gets much more energy, I'll have hire somebody to run after her, she is a handful at only 8 weeks old

If you never studded your dog out, why not cut his nurtz off? Mav hasn't met a dog he can't get along with. Not saying that you shoulda cut them off- just curious why you didn't if you weren't gonna let him use them.