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My current lab is a 4 year old female and I'm here to tell you she can be just as hard headed as any woman. She will do just fine and make me just as proud as a guy can be then all of a sudden get stubborn. After a little "reminding" of who's boss she will be fine for a week or so until the next stubborn spell. Some times I think she does it just to see what she can get away with, just like a kid. She is very affectionate and laid back in the blind though. I don't have to worry about her bouncing around like a maniac. She's a yellow dog too and I'm told that they can be more sedate. I'm going to go with a male for my next one just to avoid dealing with the heat cycles. It will be another yellow though.

Does a female lose any drive, or does it have any affect on them at retrievers to have them spade to eliminate the heat cycle?

my dog was spayed when i got her. she 4 (5 sometime this year) and if she lost any drive after being spayed then i dont know how she was handled before. she is laid back in the house but take her outside where something might fall for her to retrieve and its wide open

h2o_dog wrote:Females come in heat twice a year. Males are in heat 365 days a year. But the difference is....a male won't get knocked up by the neighborhood stray and raise a litter of unwanted puppies. I've had males, females, and spayed females...and I still like the the old hard heads best.

Perhaps I should be precise....I like MALES the best (and the hard headedest dog I ever knew was a female)

Ive always had males. Black males. Got buddies that have always had yellow females. A preference thing more than any. I concur on waiting until you get out of school and somewhat setteled to get a dog. A puppy and a apartment are gonna be rough. I would think a lot of the dogs you see that are free to good homes come from a situation such as this, where the owner has great intentions but the circumstances dont work out. There will always be dogs around when u get ready for one.

HeKing wrote:my dog was spayed when i got her. she 4 (5 sometime this year) and if she lost any drive after being spayed then i dont know how she was handled before. she is laid back in the house but take her outside where something might fall for her to retrieve and its wide open

Thanks for insight....anyone have any more opinions or experiences with spading a female and how it relates to drive to hunt?

You might ask this on the gundog forum, where you will get a lot of input from guys who don't read the main forum. However, if females as a rule lacked any significant "drive to hunt" you would never see them in Field Trials, which is as hardcore on "drive" than you can get. There are not many 1200 yard quad retrieves with angle entries/exits and multiple reentries in hunting.

I learned a long time ago after all my males kept getting run crossing over roads and highways that a female doesn't go around chasing dog P$%&Y. But when she is in heat you have to lock em up tight.

A dog male/female is as good as his/her owner end of story

My thought process was a little different. I have hunted over good females and males with neither sex being any better hunting in my opinion. When I was trying to decide I thought back to the number of times I had been at a camp and saw 2 males fighting and the females just hanging back.

This is not always the case but at my camp, if someone brings another male around then there is going to be a fight. Very few times have we had problems with the females. But the flip side of that is that if your female goes into heat, do everyone a favor at your camp and leave her home.

Both my dogs are spayed and one is a fantastic hunter, the other is one of the dumbest animals I have ever been around. Spaying a dog doesn't take away much drive. YOU are the one that will encourage the drive to retrieve and hunt.

If you can get a place and live with your dog, fantastic. My eleven year old pup was a dog I got in college. I had a good yard and a ton of time to train her and spend time with her.

If you cannot live with the dog, don't do it. You will not have the results that you are looking for.