Ranger The Brindle Labrador Retriever
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Sorry it’s been a while I took a short vacation to Colorado for a little snowboarding. While I was gone I got a few more pictures of Brindle and Black and Tan Labrador Retrievers. These images are from one of our readers who found out her dog, Ranger was a purebred Labrador Retriever after getting a DNA test done. You can see Jenny’s full comment in the comment section of our Brindle Labrador Retriever post.
Here are the pictures of Ranger along with the email I received about him:
Ranger The Brindle Labrador Retriever
Ranger The Brindle Lab Puppy
Brindle Lab Puppy Days
Ranger
Ranger Relaxing on the Grass
Ranger Barking
Thanks for sending me your e-mail so I can show off Ranger to everybody. Here are some pictures of him. The first two are from when we first adopted him. He was about 10-12 weeks old. The third is a few months later. The last two are from 2007, so Ranger would have been about 3 years old then. Let me tell you about Ranger. You can edit as much of this as you’d like, of course. Ranger was adopted from the North Shore Animal League here on Long Island in 2004. As soon as we laid eyes on him, we knew he was the dog for us, so we went ahead and brought him home to a somewhat bewildered pair of cats. There was no problem introducing them. Everybody got along just fine.
Ranger’s training was just about as simple an operation as any dog owner would ever want to have. He was housetrained within one week, and learned the simple commands of sit, stay, down and come within only a day or two. On the advice of, well, everybody, we tried training him with a cage, but he hated it, my husband hated it, and I hated it. I’d never trained a dog like that before and I probably won’t try it ever again. I’ll stick to what I know how to do.
When our family went up to our lake house in Pennsylvania soon after we got him, he did not hesitate one second before jumping right in and swimming out to the boat filled with my husband and boys for a day of fishing. He spent that day curled up in the boat and taking occasional dips to cool off and get a drink. He was about 15 weeks old then, but to this day he won’t let the boat leave without him.
As I mentioned, we live on Long Island, so there are plenty of squirrels to chase, and chase them he does, but not before going through a rather catlike stalking which includes a picture perfect “point” stance. In addition, my husband does hunt, and has taken him on a few hunting trips. He has done very well in the field, though hubby and I are not really sure how to train a dog for hunting. It doesn’t seem to matter that we’re incompetent, ’cause the dog does exactly what he’s told to do and doesn’t crush the game in his mouth. He is utterly unafraid of the gunshot.
Our house in not empty too often (I am a stay-at-home mom), but there has been no problem leaving him at home alone. He is not destructive in the least. But if someone IS home…Ranger will be with him. Whenever we’re around, the dog is somewhere close by and often falls asleep on your feet (like he’s doing right now while I’m typing this). He gets along wonderfully with our cats and is friendly and gregarious with other dogs and people.
That is not to say that he isn’t protective of his family. He intensely dislikes it when the boys shout at each other or fight. Should they begin a tussle, Ranger will get between them and bark. If the smoke alarm goes off (like when we’re broiling something), he barks like crazy and always gets a treat for his excellent supplementary alarm system.
All in all, he’s a great dog and we couldn’t be happier with him. This whole “what’s my dog” thing has been a lot of fun for our family, and now that we know what he is, it’s also been very interesting, too!
Hope you like the pictures of our wonderful dog. I don’t know what we’d do without him.
PS: Ranger does do one strange thing: He eats like a cat. What I mean is, when his food is put down for him, he doesn’t do what most dogs do, namely scarf the whole thing up in about two seconds. No…he eats a few bites and walks away from his bowl, coming back throughout the day to graze. When he is finished, he picks up his bowl and carries it to us for a refill. I’ve never seen this behavior in a dog before.
If you’d like to read more about Brindle and Black and Tan Labrador Retrievers check out these articles:
Brindle and Black and Tan Labrador Retrievers
Black And Tan Labrador Retrievers
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That dog is as much of a full bred labrador as I am the Pope!!! Just the reason bad genes are getting into the PURE BRED line…
Hi Jenny,
I just love rangers face, he has those I love you eyes, as I call them. Labs seem to have love bread into them! Ranger is quite pretty and looks to be quite playful as most labs are. I really love the puppy pic.
@Jenny, sorry for the confusion. I changed the caption. Please let me know if anything else needs to be changed (don’t worry my feelings won’t be hurt). I appreciate the time and effort you put in to sending me information on Ranger and keeping up with the comments on the post.
By the way, I never really thought about Labs and howling, but now that it was mentioned I really can’t recall hearing any of our Labs howl.
Thanks everyone for commenting.
Hi all…nice to see some comments on Ranger’s story here. Thank you all for your kind remarks!
Bridget, as you can see from my original post, we were as surprised as you to hear that our dog turned out to be a purebred. We thought for sure that he would turn out to be some kind of large hound with some lab in him. We were wrong.
I have also noticed what you did about his ears, though to tell the truth, he tends to perk up his ears when he hears his name, and that’s how I got his attention to get a nice picture. I will have to look and see if I have a more candid shot. His normal ear position is typical of a lab’s. (The second picture from the top is more normal for him…not as perky!)
As for the howling…well, Ranger wasn’t really howling in that picture (I didn’t have the heart to correct Colby. He captioned the pictures, not me.) In reality, he was barking, and not howling. Ranger doesn’t howl at all.
Janice, I look forward to seeing your beloved Dixie. I will go over right now and take a look at her.
Again, thanks for the comments.
Regards,
Jenny
To see Dixie look her name up in the search box it is posted in here.
It’s not typilcal for a lab to howl that much (if at all), as the owner of Ranger-puppy tells the dog does. But you tell that the gene test directly says, that Ranger is a pure lab. So, maybe we just have to believe you in this case.
Still I wonder: could it be so that the brindle-gene is connected somehow with this special kind of behavior not typical for a lab?
Oh yea, Dixie is striped almost like a tiger!
I have a Brindle Lab, Her mother is dark chocolate and her father is black, and yes she is full blooded. Dixie is one of the most beautiful dogs you have ever seen. I have never seen one like her before. The brindle is not just in spots it is all over her body, just a beautiful sight to see. I am very proud to own her.
About Ranger-boy: allright with the color, if it comes from the very resessive genes… But his ears – they really are NOT the labradorian ears. They seem to be nearly half-erected.
So that’s why I don’t believe he is a pure bred.
And as you may know, one litter can have two ore even more fathers..
Hey Kim,
We had no idea Ranger was any kind of purebred dog when we saw him at the shelter. We just took one look at that face and we knew he was the one for us!
Over the years, I’ve often thought about purchasing a purebred dog from a reputable breeder, but every time I thought about it, I also thought about all those puppies and kittens at the shelters who had no one to care for them, and I just couldn’t do it. And so…every dog and every cat I’ve ever owned has either been a stray or an adoption, and to tell the truth, I really couldn’t be happier. They’ve all be great pets.
Thanks for your kind words, though.
Best regards,
Jenny
PS: I’m sure this is some kind of blasphemy or something, but…I think the brindle-coated labs are better looking than teh solid colored ones. I’ve always prefered dogs with markings.
I think it’s interesting that there are black/tan, brindle, mosaic and choc/tan Labs. I do NOT think that they should be purposely bred though. It sickens me to think that people are purposely breeding “silver” and “charcoal” (diluted blacks and chocolates) and telling people they are a ‘new/rare’ color. A person should only breed if they have top quality, healthy, up to breed standard, OFA/CERF’d Labs with nice pedigrees and the appropriate temperament.
I am glad you adopted your color mutated Lab from a shelter. All dogs need love and homes regardless of if they are up to standards or not. 🙂 If we could stop the byb’s and puppymills we’d be good to go!