My Yellow Lab

Has real thick hair and sitting in a field yesterday watching the scissor tails (and no doves) she was panting like crazy and drank three bottles of water in five hours. Do any of you have your labs sheared? What worries me is when duck season comes would it grow back in time.

I used to carry a towel, and dip it in cooler of ice water. Lay dog down and put towel on dogs underside. Hunting in early season heat can be dangerous for them.

Try hunting at sunrise and skip the evening. I rarely hunt evenings any more. I would not shear your dog. I don't think it will help much when 90+ degrees. This weekend was brutally hot.

Another idea you can do but it will be constant on a hot afternoon is to get a cool matte by frogg toggs. Toss it in a cooler of icy cold water then ring it out and have your dog sit or better yet lay on it between retrieves. I have actually placed this on an invisilab platform so the matte and dog are off the ground a bit.

My $0.02

I shear my cocker but I also take a big galvanized tub from Tractor Supply for him to get in too cool off. He loves it.

Sweese, I was in Lytle for white wings, noon start time, I found and ordered that chill pad thanks, rusty bucket, I'll do that as well. Thanks
Bobby, my wife says if I bring home another dog, she's out. I'm sure going to miss her I sure like those little dogs, we had two at our training day for Alamo Retrievers Club

Hey that bucket is not rusty. It's galvanized. That's the red dirt of his feet when he gets back in it. I love him and hope he lives a long happy life. Best retriever and dead bird dog I ever owned.

Jim Vance up in Teague Texas can't help you with a good pup. Let me know if you need his number.

How did you do in lytle? My group was in Von ormy and had less than 30 birds between two days.

Labs an dogs have no way to get rid of heat besides thru their paws,mouth and belly.. Hot and Humid days like Sat and Sun are brutal..Esp breathing in humid air...Ice towels actually work against trying to cool a dog down...I carry wet towels in 5 gallon bucket filled w water.. Also pouring alcohol on their pads draws heat out...But mainly if its humid and hot I dont take a chance.. Pick my own birds up..

kmann, I never saw a dove, only scissor tails and sparrows Bobby I was responding to 68rustybucket

Gotcha.

As for the original question...The conventional wisdom is that you never cut a lab's coat. It has a double coat, and the coat not only keeps it warm in the winter, but helps keep it cool in the summer.
First result from a google search: https://www.playbarkrun.com/labrador-retriever-coat/
Now, I am not an expert, and somebody may know different, but that is the conventional wisdom: Never, ever, shave your lab.

^^^^

I've always heard the same.

I will only hunt a pond in the hot evenings that way she can swim to cool down and a nice shade tree. It's the sun on the coat that seems to heat up my black lab

Never shave your lab - it will mess up their undercoat in a bad way.

Really shouldn't shave any dog ever. Shaved dogs are actually hotter. Don't believe me - get a thermal camera and do a before and after.

When we hunted the special white wing season on the boarder, we always took a little baby pool and an ice chest of water to pour in when we got to the hunting area. We would leave the pool in the shade by the trucks. We regularly visited the pool and the dogs would just get in and lay down. No ice of course just tap water from a hose at the hotel.

Well dang. My old lab is 17 now. I shaved her at the start of every summer with sheep shears. Never took it down to bare hide but she loved it. No adverse effect I could discern, and I hunted her for a couple weeks in North Dakota every fall. Often times breaking ice in single digit temperatures till she got too old. She was happy as a clam in the cold. By November her hair looked thicker than Colin Kaepernick's.

Wow 17! That’s awesome, I hope mine lives to be that old.

Here you go. Buddied up with my Pudelpointer, watching the Astros and Redsox with me.

Is your lab used to exercising in the heat of the day? It all comes down to conditioning and mitigation like everyone else has stated. Can't take any house dog out on a dove hunt that has been sucking down A/C for the last few months and expect them to do well.

I have a lab that has lived in Texas and now Bangkok, TH...... and I thought Houston was hot....

Exactly. My 9 year old yellow lab has lived, breathed and worked outside during all kinds of heat. She has fans, and at times misters, and often a tub to get in and out. She's a retrieving machine, and at 9 may be slowing a little but not much. Wednesday evening out west was hot and humid for that world, she drinks as much as I'll give her. Get them down and calm in between. Don't shoot flocks, in heat I just shoot singles.

But training and practicing and living in heat makes a difference, same as for human athletes that I coached for 30 years. Proper training, conditioning, and preparation prevents more problems than you can ever solve.

I chose yellows because I hunt dove more than anything else. They are dove dogs. I can see where black/brown labs would have more heat issues.

As far as the cool mats, etc... if you have to do that, cool from the top, cold sinks, heat rises

This worked on hot hunts.
Had to keep adding water, because son inlaws like it a little to much.