Personality
Labradors are a well-balanced and versatile breed that make excellent pets. As a rule, they are not excessively prone to being territorial, pining, insecurity, aggression, destructiveness, hypersensitivity, or other difficult traits which sometimes manifest in a variety of breeds. Labradors have a reputation as a very mellow breed and an excellent family dog, including a good reputation with children of all ages and other animals.
As the name suggests, they are excellent retrievers. As an extension of this, they instinctively enjoy holding objects and even hands or arms in their mouths, which they do with great gentleness. However, they are prone to chewing objects, though they can be trained out of this behavior. The Labrador Retriever's coat repels water to some extent, thus facilitating the extensive use of the dog in waterfowl hunting.
Labradors have a well-developed appetite, and some individual dogs may be highly indiscriminate, eating digestible and non-food objects alike. They are persuasive and persistent in requesting food. For this reason, the Lab owner must carefully control his or her dog's food intake to avoid obesity and its associated health problems.
Training
The Labrador's fun loving boisterousness and lack of fear may require training and firm handling at times to ensure it does that they do not get out of hand. Labradors mature at around three years of age. Before this time they can have a significant degree of puppyish energy, often mislabeled as being hyperactive. Because of their enthusiasm, leash-training early on is suggested to prevent pulling when full-grown.
Labs enjoy retrieving a ball and other forms of activity such as agility, Frisbee, or fly ball. They are food and fun oriented, very trainable and open-minded to new things, and they thrive on human attention, affection and interaction, of which they find it difficult to get enough.
The steady temperament of Labs and their ability to learn, make them an ideal breed for search and rescue, detection and therapy work. Their primary working role in the field continues to be that of a hunting retriever.
Barking
Although they will sometimes bark at noise, especially "alarm barking" when there is noise from unseen sources, Labs are not on the whole noisy or territorial, and are often very easygoing and trusting with strangers, thus not often used as guard dogs.
Exploration
Labradors as a breed are curious, exploratory and love company, following both people and interesting scents for food, attention and novelty value. In this way, they can often vanish or otherwise become separated from their owners. They are also popular dogs if found, and at times may be stolen. Because of this a number of dog clubs and rescue organizations consider it good practice to have microchips embedded in Labradors, along with the owner's name and address on their collar and tags.