zoombwaz
Radical Moderate Populist
I have a theory about intelligence (or lack thereof) in retrievers. Let me state unequivocally from the outset that I love Labradors, Golden Retrievers, and lab mixes. I've had a series of retrievers, and unbridled exuberance and its cousin, unfocused enthusiasm (as in, "I'M ENTHUSIASTIC!! ABOUT WHAT? WHADDAYA GOT?”) are the best terms to describe their behavior. I had a golden retriever/yellow lab mix named Callie, who used to do this odd little dance around things that made her happy, including her rawhide Cheweez. which she would throw across the room, then dance around it: lunge in, shake head, jump back, step to the side, repeat. Hysterical. My first retriever, Jason, was a purebred black lab from grand field champion stock, the kind who look like beer kegs with legs and have a big square head with a brain the size of a le Seur pea rattling around inside. I should have named him Bullwinkle, because everybody who saw him pointed in mock horror, and exclaimed, "MOOSE!" Jason was 160 pounds of solid muscle unguided by any intellect.
A friend of mine, also a black lab owner, theorized that continual proximity to labs made their owners more and more stupid, as the dogs are so goofy, they suck the IQ points right out of one's head. The only thing he couldn't figure out was why the dog didn't get any smarter. I suggested that the black lab's head was to intelligence what a black hole is to mass and energy, where the intense tidal forces from the collapsed red giant star can bend the path of light, can capture any light beam or solid object that crosses its event horizon, and can absorb an infinite amount of energy and mass.
Similar to the black hole, the black lab's head is such a perfect intellectual vacuum that it can absorb an infinite amount of intellect from those humans near it, without becoming itself more intelligent. Naturally, since the owner is in closer proximity to the dog's intellectual event horizon than the casual participant, and for far longer periods of time, he or she bears the brunt of the mentally debilitating effects. As anecdotal evidence of the theory's validity, I offer the following cautionary tale of Labrador idiocy, and yes, I know that’s redundant.
My brother Pete and i took Jason to Eldorado Canyon State Park in Colorado for an afternoon of Labrador quality time, which of course requires little more than water and something to fetch. There is a strict leash law in Colorado, such that any dog off-leash in open rangeland can legally be shot by the rancher, but the definition of what constitutes a leash is less strictly enforced. Technically, it's supposed to be no longer than 6', but we had the Moose on a 1/2" x 30' polypropylene rope and called it good. We took him up the creek, found a nice deep pool, and started throwing rocks in the pool for him to fetch. “Happy dog, happy dog. Here's your rock, boss Throw it again, c'mon, c'mon, C'MON!!” We gradually increased the size of the rocks we were throwing in, until Pete heaved one that was too big for Jason to pick up into the deepest part of the pool. He dove in after it, but couldn't pick it up, even after repeated attempts with only his hips and tail out of the water, so he got mad at the rock (duh). and started barking at it. With his head and most of his body underwater. Barking underwater. These BIG bubbles would break the surface of the water, then the big, square head would pop up, take a deep breath, and go back down to bark some more. More BIG bubbles. Pete and I were in hysterics, and he was barely able to gasp out, "Rick, your dog is really stupid." We finally stopped laughing and dragged him out with the rope before he drowned himself, and threw a stick down the trail back to the parking lot. Evil rock was forgotten immediately. “Oboyoboyoboy, A STICK!! Happy dog, happy dog.” Once back in the parking lot,we saw the lot was about ¾ full and filling slowly. Since there wasn’t anybody giving us the hairy eyeball over our parking space, we decided to have a beer before we drove home, so we tied the end of Jason’s rope to the front bumper of Pete's Toyota pick up, cracked a couple of cold ones, and sat on the hood of the truck, watching the happy dog saying hi to all his newest best friends in the world, EVER!! At this juncture, with the moose as far away to the left as his 30' of rope would allow, a car pulled in across the dirt parking lot and about 40 feet to the right. This somewhat effeminate guy got out, and put his little foo-foo dog on the ground next to his car and clipped the dog's leash to her collar. Pete and I looked at each other, said "Uh-oh" in unison, and looked to see where Jason was, just in time to see him barreling past the pickup at full speed, running to say hi to Foo-Foo, his newest best friend in the world, EVER!! Pete said, "this is gonna be ugly..." and just as he said "ugly," 160 pounds of unguided muscle hit the end of his rope at full tilt boogie...
The big square head snapped down, as the rope stopped Jason dead in his tracks, but the ass-end kept right on going, up and over the suddenly stationary big square head, and landed on its back in the dirt parking lot, raising a cloud of dust at the impact crater, and jerked the rope so hard, the front of the pickup lurched violently a foot to the right, and caused Pete and I, who were not at all prepared for said sudden lurch to the right, to fall to the left, off the hood of the truck, each landing on his back, spilling his beer on himself, and Foo-Foo, in mortal fear for her life, peed on her owner's shoe and pants leg.
A moment of silence as the dust settled around the stunned moose lying on his back, and the beer soaked into the stunned brothers lying on theirs, and the stunned crowd in the parking lot surveyed the carnage, followed by an explosion of hysterical laughter. All the witnesses to this idiocy were laughing uncontrollably, the principles, not so much. Pete looked over at me and said. "Rick, your dog is really stupid," at which point Jason arrived, having already shaken off his crash and burn, and was delighted to find his two favorite best friends in the world, EVER! lying on their backs at his level, which of course means, “THEY MUST WANT KISSES!! OBOYOBOYOBOY!” I scrambled to my feet, narrowly avoiding Pete's fate, lying flat on his back, helpless, as 160 pounds of HAPPY LAB stood on his beer-soaked chest and gave him lots of slobbery kisses, while he yelled, "Get this big shit off of me!" More hysterical laughter from the assembled multitude, this time including me...
A friend of mine, also a black lab owner, theorized that continual proximity to labs made their owners more and more stupid, as the dogs are so goofy, they suck the IQ points right out of one's head. The only thing he couldn't figure out was why the dog didn't get any smarter. I suggested that the black lab's head was to intelligence what a black hole is to mass and energy, where the intense tidal forces from the collapsed red giant star can bend the path of light, can capture any light beam or solid object that crosses its event horizon, and can absorb an infinite amount of energy and mass.
Similar to the black hole, the black lab's head is such a perfect intellectual vacuum that it can absorb an infinite amount of intellect from those humans near it, without becoming itself more intelligent. Naturally, since the owner is in closer proximity to the dog's intellectual event horizon than the casual participant, and for far longer periods of time, he or she bears the brunt of the mentally debilitating effects. As anecdotal evidence of the theory's validity, I offer the following cautionary tale of Labrador idiocy, and yes, I know that’s redundant.
My brother Pete and i took Jason to Eldorado Canyon State Park in Colorado for an afternoon of Labrador quality time, which of course requires little more than water and something to fetch. There is a strict leash law in Colorado, such that any dog off-leash in open rangeland can legally be shot by the rancher, but the definition of what constitutes a leash is less strictly enforced. Technically, it's supposed to be no longer than 6', but we had the Moose on a 1/2" x 30' polypropylene rope and called it good. We took him up the creek, found a nice deep pool, and started throwing rocks in the pool for him to fetch. “Happy dog, happy dog. Here's your rock, boss Throw it again, c'mon, c'mon, C'MON!!” We gradually increased the size of the rocks we were throwing in, until Pete heaved one that was too big for Jason to pick up into the deepest part of the pool. He dove in after it, but couldn't pick it up, even after repeated attempts with only his hips and tail out of the water, so he got mad at the rock (duh). and started barking at it. With his head and most of his body underwater. Barking underwater. These BIG bubbles would break the surface of the water, then the big, square head would pop up, take a deep breath, and go back down to bark some more. More BIG bubbles. Pete and I were in hysterics, and he was barely able to gasp out, "Rick, your dog is really stupid." We finally stopped laughing and dragged him out with the rope before he drowned himself, and threw a stick down the trail back to the parking lot. Evil rock was forgotten immediately. “Oboyoboyoboy, A STICK!! Happy dog, happy dog.” Once back in the parking lot,we saw the lot was about ¾ full and filling slowly. Since there wasn’t anybody giving us the hairy eyeball over our parking space, we decided to have a beer before we drove home, so we tied the end of Jason’s rope to the front bumper of Pete's Toyota pick up, cracked a couple of cold ones, and sat on the hood of the truck, watching the happy dog saying hi to all his newest best friends in the world, EVER!! At this juncture, with the moose as far away to the left as his 30' of rope would allow, a car pulled in across the dirt parking lot and about 40 feet to the right. This somewhat effeminate guy got out, and put his little foo-foo dog on the ground next to his car and clipped the dog's leash to her collar. Pete and I looked at each other, said "Uh-oh" in unison, and looked to see where Jason was, just in time to see him barreling past the pickup at full speed, running to say hi to Foo-Foo, his newest best friend in the world, EVER!! Pete said, "this is gonna be ugly..." and just as he said "ugly," 160 pounds of unguided muscle hit the end of his rope at full tilt boogie...
The big square head snapped down, as the rope stopped Jason dead in his tracks, but the ass-end kept right on going, up and over the suddenly stationary big square head, and landed on its back in the dirt parking lot, raising a cloud of dust at the impact crater, and jerked the rope so hard, the front of the pickup lurched violently a foot to the right, and caused Pete and I, who were not at all prepared for said sudden lurch to the right, to fall to the left, off the hood of the truck, each landing on his back, spilling his beer on himself, and Foo-Foo, in mortal fear for her life, peed on her owner's shoe and pants leg.
A moment of silence as the dust settled around the stunned moose lying on his back, and the beer soaked into the stunned brothers lying on theirs, and the stunned crowd in the parking lot surveyed the carnage, followed by an explosion of hysterical laughter. All the witnesses to this idiocy were laughing uncontrollably, the principles, not so much. Pete looked over at me and said. "Rick, your dog is really stupid," at which point Jason arrived, having already shaken off his crash and burn, and was delighted to find his two favorite best friends in the world, EVER! lying on their backs at his level, which of course means, “THEY MUST WANT KISSES!! OBOYOBOYOBOY!” I scrambled to my feet, narrowly avoiding Pete's fate, lying flat on his back, helpless, as 160 pounds of HAPPY LAB stood on his beer-soaked chest and gave him lots of slobbery kisses, while he yelled, "Get this big shit off of me!" More hysterical laughter from the assembled multitude, this time including me...
