My wife and I just got our first puppy. She's a Chesapeake Bay Retriever that is 10 weeks old. I've been raised with labs my whole life and know nothing about this breed. She's got one quarter lab in her but looks like a purebread CSR. Anyway, I've been hearing some bad stories about how some of them can be really mean. Is this true. What should I expect from this breed? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cuthroat

Usually I just read posts but I had to register to answer this guys question. We also have a cheasapeake bay retriever/lab and he has been the best dog in the world. He is very loyal, and very nice. He walks right with you and doesn't run away. the only problem that I have is that they love water so fishing can be a problem. If you hunt, they are the PERFECT water fowl dog.

Cuttthroat,

I've got a 95 Pound female Chesapeake and she's awesome, both with the kids and in the field...BUT...for some reason, she comes unglued with strangers and has even bitten the meter reader, the neighbors Vietnamese Gardener, and a few friends who try to befriend her over the fence. Be Careful and make sure you socialize him/her allot right now. We made sure WE did but the breed was original "Bred" to protect Ducks/geese while being sold at "market".

Dan is also correct...get'em near water, forget it...They're in faster than you can say NO!

Scott

We have a female lab chessie mix and she's great. Like the above posts she loves water and is extremely protective. People outside of the immediate family are not welcome in the back yard. Away from home she's leary of strangers but tolerates them. I've read that chesapeaks are late to mature and that's been the case with her; at four years old she's just now developed an attention span.

How many stories would you like?

I had a Chessie for many years. Lucy was a great fishing dog and good companion. In her latter years she got a bit snippy with our baby daughter. I supect that if she had been raised with kids, she would have been fine.

Lucy was hardheaded, tough, and stubborn. She was absolutely focused on fish. I never hunted her, and she sublimated all her hunting urges into fishing. She knew faster than we did when a rod went down. She would occasionally jump out of the boat, into the the river after a fish. She would bark and whine like crazy when they jumped and rolled, and was as exceited as we were when we got one in the net.

She had us froozed into thinking she was dumber than a rock for many years. I gave up trying to teach her complicated tasks, thinking she was just too stupid. Then, one night, I learned otherwise.

I was working on a systems project that had just gone live. I was catching support calls from the customer, and took such a call at 11:30 one evening.

At that time, at night we kept Lucy in a room behind the garage, off of the kitchen. After I took the call, I put her in the room, shut the door, and started to get ready for bed. While I was in the bathroom, I heard her toenails clicking across the kitchen floor. Figuring that I hadn't shut the door well, I put her back into the back room, and shut the door again, making sure that it was latched this time. A minute later, I heard her walking through the kitchen again!

I went back and examined the doorknob. It was wet with saliva, and had teeth marks on it! She had learned how to open the door with her mouth. By herself. But wait, there's more!

In this same room, there was also a sliding door to the back yard. In the entire time we were in the house, we never opened the door. There was another sliding door off the dining room that was what we used to let Lucy into the back yard.

When we were cleaning out the house as we moved out, I noticed that the handle to this sliding door was marred with teethmarks. Lucy had figured out that this window was in fact a door, and that this thing, which she had never seen used, was the door handle. Without ever even having seen it used as a door, or indeed evn having the curtain in front of it opened. I'm just glad she didn't figure out the lock!

She was a good dog. It was a sad day when she collapsed in the back yard and I had to take her on that last walk.