Trying to decide between a Golden Retriever vs a Labrador Retriever?
First off, if you’ve narrowed your search to these two breeds, you can’t go wrong.
Both Golden Retrievers and Labs are medium to large family-friendly dogs with lots of love to give.
The Labrador is the most popular breed and the Golden Retriever is the fourth-most popular breed on the AKC’s 2020 most popular breeds chart.
Two of the main differences between Golden Retrievers vs. Labradors are their coats and personalities. Golden Retrievers have longer coats that require more brushing. Labradors can be more strong-willed than Golden Retrievers.
But every dog is an individual, and you can learn a lot from meeting the dog’s parents.
There are some typical traits for each breed that will help you choose which one is right for you that we’ll cover in this article.
First, we’ll go through an overview of each breed, then, we’ll talk about how they compare on some important aspects of dog ownership, including:
- Energy levels
- Shedding
- Trainability
- How good they are with kids
- How good they are with other dogs and other animals
- And much more
Let’s dive in!
Golden Retriever Overview
Golden Retrievers are playful lovers with a lot of energy.
They have long, beautiful, golden coats, stand a little shorter than two feet tall, and have bushy tails that seem to always be wagging.
They were originally bred in Scotland over 150 years ago to retrieve gunned-down birds.
And although they’re still used as hunting dogs today, you can also find them walking hospitals as therapy dogs, or helping individuals as service dogs.
They’re smart and need a lot of training (which they love doing), but it’s tough to beat a golden retriever if you’re looking for a family dog.
Labrador Retriever Overview
The Labrador is America’s most popular dog for a reason.
They’re sweet, playful, enthusiastic, relatively easy to train, and loyal.
Like golden retrievers, they stand about two feet tall, but unlike goldens, they have short, wiry coats that come in yellow, black, or chocolate colors.
They