En god vän skickade en text; den bästa och mest välskrivna jag läst på länge. Så var författaren ju ingen mindre än den legendariska Mary Roslin Williams och texten ur Midland Counties Labrador Retriever Club Yearbook 1992. Återger här, av utrymmesskäl, början och slutet:

"***Labradors Are Nice****

What are little girls made of? Sugar and Spice and all that is nice. And little boys? Slugs and Snails and puppy dogs’ tails. That’s what boys are made of. And Labradors?

Well, if we were to believe much of what we hear: PRA, HCD Epilepsy, OCD and toxicaria. Not to mention bad temperament. In other words, they are a danger to themselves, the general public and especially children.

I look round the shows at all our happy, healthy dogs and find it hard to think of them in any other way than healthy and happy. We as breeders get the blame for the disasters, but surely we breed dozens and dozens of good, sound dogs (and by sound I am meaning healthy, happy dogs) for the odd ones that are undoubtedly wrong.

The trouble is, as Shakespeare says “The evil that men do live after them. The good is often interred with their bones,“ and although he was speaking of a dead man, with dogs we pay enormous attention to the bad aspects even while they are alive and forget the myriad of good attributes. In other words we witch-hunt, and it is human nature to do so."

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"We have to realise that Labradors are sometimes subject to the factors I list in my first paragraph, but surely not to the extent one would think by reading the press, attending seminars etc.

Every time we mate to an outside dog we may be bringing in PRA or HC or OCD etc. It is a nerve wrecking business and we do our best to avoid it. But even then it catches us out. Yes, all of us if we are in the breeding game long enough. But I feel we make rather more of a meal of it than we need to. We treat everything as though it was a recessive fault, to be on the safe side. If we hear of an affected dog then we avoid its sire and dam and its siblings whatever the mode of inheritance.

We act on the safe side, and are probably very wise to do so, although if a fault is recessive and we mate two carriers, in a litter of eight puppies two are likely to be clear genetically. The trouble is we can see the two recessive yellows that result from such a mating. But eye. Yet two are likely to be absolutely free from the yellow gene. If only we could spot these two ‘clears’ in other matings of carrier to carrier how much better it would be.But we ruthlessly cut out the faults and press on and the result is usually a lovely, lovable Labrador, dozens of them, hundreds of them.

Alas, nowadays, we are so obsessed with health, our own and our dogs, that every seminar or lecture we go to is about ill-health. Eye trouble in the morning, OCD in the afternoon, followed by videos of hip-replacements, then epilepsy and now it’s time for tea and go home depressed.Let’s think of Labradors and as they are as we know them.

Let’s list the attributes.

What other breed is good-tempered, fond of and safe with children, loving, obedient, active, strong, clean, doesn’t ball-up in snow, collect the things you drop, goes shooting to get your dinner, is quiet, good-looking, has an easy coat and is willing to go for a long walk or lie by the fire.

House-trains easily, eats well without being pernickety, lives to just the right age, being neither too long-lived nor too short. Good gracious, I could go on for ages. Forget about your disaster that scarred your soul. If you were a betting man you could lay probably 100 to 1 on your Labrador being a loving, lovely animal, ready and able to do all the things you want it to do.

We have a most adaptable breed. One that you can pet without it becoming petty, can spoil without it becoming spoilt, can love and be loved back and faithful unto death. And so easily trainable that it will not only take to its own job, gundog work, but can also help the unsighted, the deaf and especially the lonely.So many, many good points, yet we talk of noting but our troubles.

They are there, deal with them, but don’t let’s forget that their excellent points far out number their bad, and that good, nice, happy Labradors far out number the wrong ones.We have the best breed in the world. Let’s celebrate it."