Flat-Coated Retriever

History

A breed that excels at hunting and retrieving but is much harder to find than the Labrador and other types of retrievers, the Flat-Coated Retriever originated in the late 1700's. Believed to be of the Newfoundland, Irish Setter and Labrador bloodlines, the Flat-Coated Retriever is truly a great mix of all of these breeds and excels at many talents including hunting, retrieving, tracking, and agility.

Appearance

The Flat-Coated Retriever is a large breed dog with males and females measuring 22-23 inches in height and weighing 60-70 pounds in weight. This breed has a wedge shaped head that forms into a rectangular long muzzle with a scissor bite. Their two large ears are pendant shaped and fall gently alongside of their face. Their nose is black on black coated dogs, and brown on brown coated dogs. Their two almond shaped eyes are medium in size and available in a light hazel to black in color. Their tail is medium in length and thick from base until end. Their tail should be positioned down and outwards when relaxed. This breed has a medium length coat that is generally wavy and feathers outwards in certain areas of their body. Their coat is available in black, liver and yellow.

Temperament

The Flat-Coated Retriever is a very well mannered breed who is a wonderful dog to add to any family, including growing ones. Great with children of all ages, elderly and other canines, this breed is consistently happy, outgoing and active. This breed requires a firm and confident owner who is able to set early rules and boundaries and keep them in place. With proper socialization and obedience training, this breed has the potential to not only be an excellent hunting and training partner, but also an incredible, loving family member. As always, only positive reinforcement training methods are recommended. This breed is active and requires daily physical and mental exercise in order to remain happy and well behaved.

Grooming

This breed requires daily brushing and bathing when needed. This breed does shed daily.

Special Notes

This breed requires a properly fenced in yard or proper fitting leash and harness while outdoors at all times. Please fully educate yourself about the Flat-Coated Retriever prior to adding one to your family to ensure you are able to provide a life long commitment both physically and financially. Please note that this breed is prone to cancer, epilepsy and diabetes. All dogs originate from wolves (Canis Lupus). Each breed of dog was originally created by mixing different breeds together in an effort to bring forth certain characteristics. Once a breeder has created acceptable “breed characteristics” within their bloodline and these “breed characteristics” have shown to be reliably reproduced in the offspring for three (3) generations, the bloodline may be upgraded from the category of “foundation stock” to “pure-bred”. The same “pure-bred” breed standards vary from different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders. Dog DNA testing companies can have accurate results for a specific bloodline of a small colony of dogs. However, there are tens of thousands of different bloodlines in the world which have not yet been tested for marker baseline results by Dog DNA testing companies as of 2017. For this reason Dog DNA testing companies do not guarantee the 100% accuracy of their breed lineage results and will also show different marker results for the same pure-bred breed in different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders.