We wanted a purebred lab to be guaranteed (as much as possible) their temperament, a shared love of the water, the fun that can be their playfulness, and admittedly to satisfy my memory of boyhood dogs. My friend was also interested in a hunting dog so we spent a long time together checking out breeders. We settled on one who did just that and took care to show us the histories, health and longevity of all his family trees. At thirteen he is developing bad arthritis in his hips and hind legs that is common to the breed and large dogs in general and he has lived a pretty decent number of years for a large dog as well.
I may not go purebred again but if you do, it pays to be selective about your breeder for the reasons stated by Homedad and many others. Nothing made me sadder than when I went to a 'recommended by a friend' breeder and saw signs that it was obviously a poorly run puppy mill. I wanted to take all the dogs home with me but my wife would have divorced me so I settled for reporting him to the authorities. He was raided and shut down a week later.
