The Labrador retriever may have lost the American Kennel Club’s top ranking to the French bulldog in 2022, but it still leads in households across much of the country. New research from Trusted Housesitters says Labs are the most-owned breed in 28 states, after holding the AKC’s No. 1 spot for 31 straight years.

For a breed so familiar, its history is less obvious than its name suggests.

Despite the name, Labrador retrievers did not come from Labrador. Dr. Frances Smith, president of the Labrador Retriever Club, said the breed began in Newfoundland, where it worked along the icy coast.

“Contrary to popular opinion the breed did not come from Labrador , it actually originated in Newfoundland, and it was developed primarily as a breed that loved the water and it worked hard and it actually retrieved fishing nets for seamen in that area,” she said.

Smith said breeders later took the dogs to England, where the Earl of Malmesbury worked to develop them into hunters in the 1800s.

Dog historian Stephanie Howard-Smith said the original Canadian water dogs were crossed with British gun dogs, including setters, before British and Scottish breeders brought them back to North America in the 19th century.

Howard-Smith said the breed gained broad recognition between the 1840s and 1860s. She pointed to newspaper lost dog ads that specifically described Labrador retrievers, and books that described them as close companions to gunmen.

She said breed standards and clubs in the early 1900s made the Labrador’s defining features more fixed, including otter tails, water resistant coats and wide skulls.

“Prior to the Victorian period and kind of the birth of the pedigree dog, breeds are more like a rainbow in that … they all kind of bleed into each other at the edges. And then afterwards … they’re more like color swatches at a paint store and they become super delineated,” Howard-Smith said.

Smith said the breed’s otter tail is its most prominent feature.

“The breed is described as having an otter tail, which is a tail that is thick at the base where the tail joins the rear end, wrapped with plenty of coat, and it gives a cylindrical appearance tapering to a point. They use that tail as a rudder when swimming, so it is an important issue for them as well,” she said.

She said Labradors are considered a head, coat and tail breed in the conformation ring. Judges look for “a pretty, soft head with a nice expression, plenty of width and a reasonable muzzle length.”

Smith also said many Labradors are raised as “dual dogs,” trained for both hunting and the show ring.

On coat colour, Smith said black Labs remain the most popular, in part because early breeders preferred black over chocolate. She said yellow came later and has a specific genetic explanation.

“The yellow coat appears due to what is called an epistatic gene,” she said. “it’s a gene that amsks body color, so what that means is every yellow Lab is really either a black Labrador or a chocolate Lab wearing a yellow raincoat. That’s the effect of epistasis.”

She said the breed’s coat should be water resistant, a trait tied to its water dog background. A Lab with a proper coat can be hard to bathe because water does not easily soak through, and that also makes the coat slower to dry.

Smith said the breed’s responsiveness to training helped make it the preferred dog for guide dog foundations. She compared Labradors with poodles, saying poodles’ tendency to solve problems on their own could make them less suited to guide work.

“So, [the guide dog foundations] said the standard poodles would walk a person… If the blind person said ‘forward…’ right into an open manhole, rather than around it, if it was a shorter distance, whereas the Labrador would not,” Smith said. “So you don’t always want a dog that can solve every problem. The poodle was thinking this other way would be the short way, which is right through the manhole. And the Labrador was taught to go around. Labradors reliably went around manhole covers, whether they were open or closed.”

She also said Labs are highly effective in search and recovery work, especially in water. Smith said one dog she raised in Minnesota, Smoke, worked in water recovery and helped locate drowning victims.

“One of my dogs found a body in a northern Minnesota cold lake at about 85 feet of water, and the family had searched for months. I mean, it’s just mind-boggling what they can do,” she said. “He allowed a lot of families to achieve great closure.”

Howard-Smith said the Labrador’s popularity does not appear to come from one movie, celebrity or cultural flashpoint.

“Normally when we see massive rises in breed popularity, you can attribute it to something like a film or a famous owner. With the Lab, there’s not a clear single point of cultural reference that explains that,” she said.

Instead, she pointed to temperament.

“They are intelligent, loving, gentle-natured dogs and… great with kids,” she said, adding that once Labs get “past their awful teenage years,” their trainability makes them easy to live with.

Howard-Smith said the breed also carries different social associations in the United States and the United Kingdom.

“In the U.S., you’ve got this whole kind of suburban dream. In the UK, they’re connected to shooting, which over here is a more… patrician pastime,” she said.

She said the French bulldog’s rise reflects a move toward smaller dogs, not a collapse in Labrador appeal.

“It largely comes down to this trend for slightly smaller dogs … driven by things like social media, but also by the fact that millennials, Gen Z now, are living in smaller homes, having fewer children,” she said.

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