Originally Posted by
TuMicks
After I posted that question, (probably after a glass of wine...) I started to think about what would happen if AKC recognized a "new breed", "the American Field Labrador Retriever". Knowing how human nature is, everyone would compete to make them look leaner and faster and pretty soon, you'd have black, nearly hairless Saluki's.
If a "show lab" was as muscled out through daily swimming and significant land work like field labs are, they would have very, very broad chests, made to look more so by their coats. I think the same would be true for their back ends. It could be pretty sexy looking, in fact. You guys shouldn't be forced to pork your dogs up.
I know several people who do Obedience with their show dogs and I worry about what the jumping does to their joints when they're carrying too much weight.