Thanks very much for your thorough and experienced reply about buying a lab. I'm finding the whole thing very daunting. Of course I love dogs and have always wanted a lab but now i've got it in my head that I want a black male. Maybe with your experiences with the girls you will be able to put my mind at rest on a few things. The reasons I was put off with females is... I hate seeing dogs sniffing round their 'bits' and i'd probably end up being as protective as if it was my own daughter, do you have any problems with other dogs always trying to force themselves? My sister in law has an alsation and a westie bitch and they both 'leak' regularly and I don't know how i'd cope with that either. It's probably just a man thing to be honest because having read what i've written, the same could be said about women in general. I'd hate anyone sniffing round my daughter if I had one and I doubt I could talk about periods with much authority either so both my points are probably complete rubbish, but, insensitive as us men can be at times, that's just the way I think about it when I think about getting a bitch (probably my own testosterone clouding my judgement!). What are your thoughts on that? Someone else has mentioned to me about the yellows being calmer and hence the use as guide dogs but on my travels around the net I read an article that said there was no difference at all with the colouring and it was more to do with breeding. Yours seems to be a more valid point because the proof is out there as guide dogs but then unless someones actually owned several of each colour and raised them all in the same way, how would anyone know if they are really different? I personally have only ever seen yellow guide dogs and black guard dogs with the very very occassional exception so there has to be something in it or could it just be as simple as yellow looks friendlier? After all, i'm sure blondes can't always have more fun! Is it pretty much par for the course then that if you get a male it will be driven to want to hump everything? How old are they when they get done? My thought there is that my son is only 5 and probably not wise or quick enough yet to protect himself from claws. Could the dogs 'urges' be 'calmed' at a young enough age that it wouldn't be big and rampant? Incidentally, the 14 year old '57' bitch that I lost last year tried to hump at least one person every week of its 14 years so what was going on there and could it still be a possibility even if I got a female lab? Will await your response before I bore you to tears. I'm so excited about getting a puppy I could talk about it for ages but sooner or later i'm going to have to make a decision.