Flat-Coated Retriever

The Flat-Coated Retriever is an active, multitalented bird dog with a strong desire to please people.[3] Exuberant, confident, and outgoing, they make a loving family pet and can be companions to small children, provided adults are nearby to direct this dog's boisterous enthusiasm. These retrievers require plenty of exercise and engagement to help channel their natural sporting energy.[4] Owners should provide dogs with at least 2 hours of exercise a day.[5] While they will protect their owners and property with an assertive bark, they are unlikely to back up such noise with actual aggression.[6] Because of their excellent sense of smell, combined with their boundless energy and eagerness to please their masters, they are sometimes used as drug-sniffer dogs. They are used in the breeding program for The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association in the UK, both as a breed and as cross-breeds with the Labrador Retriever [7]

Mason and I had so much fun on our stroll together. He's an older fella, he had a bit of a limp and it seemed like he had some elderly back hips, but man, the puppy in him is still going strong. When I arrived he greeted me with a big set of rubber rings (that he apparently is very attached to) and was already asking to play. I put the harness on him and he hopped a couple times in excitement. Once we got to the door I asked him to drop his toys to which he easily complied. He was a bit of a puller in his eagerness to head toward the park, but nothing unmanageable. He surprised me once we got to the park with just how playful he was! The first reasonably sized stick we found was immediately pounced upon, broken into tiny pieces, then left for scrap. He did this from one end of the park and back until he found what appeared to be an entire tree branch. He proceeded to pick this up and trot around triumphantly. He wasn't particularly interested in playing tug with it or even in chasing it if I threw it, but he was interested in romping with it. If I'd jump toward him he'd run in wide circles around me letting the stick bump off the ground and jostle him. He seemed to possess endless energy as long as he had a stick in his mouth. As we were leaving the park his attention strayed from the stick ever so slightly (not enough to drop it, of course) due to a pair of dogs who were racing around the baseball field. He would have been absolutely delighted if I had been so trusting to let him off the leash and romp with them, but this was out of the question considering the situation. I had to rather noisily urge him along to shake him out of his dog-chasing fantasy. Once we got to the corner of the park I made him drop his stick and he, quite hilariously, gazed back at it for almost an entire block. Surprisingly, once we neared his apartment, a van of young people passed by and hollered out the window at us. This seemed to startle Mason and started him on a quest to bark at every stranger. He barked the whole block to the apartment and at people who passed by us while I was entering the apartment's foyer. All memory of this startling moment seemed to be wiped away, however, once we was paired with his rings again.