America's top dog
America's most popular pooch is once again from Canada's eastern-most province.
American Kennel Club officials confirmed in New York City on Monday that the Labrador retriever was the most popular purebred in 2006, a title it has maintained the past 16 years.
The retriever represented about 124,000 registrations, or 14 per cent of the club's total last year.
Labrador retrievers evolved over the last 1,000 years, descendants of the dogs European fishermen brought with them when they visited the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, says Sonny Allinson, spokesman for the Canadian Kennel Club.
"Many of them were left to run free on the island when the fishermen went back. So whatever dogs that came from Europe interbred," he told CBC News Online.
According to researchers at Memorial University in St. John's, the dog does not come from Labrador as its name suggests. The confusion arose when British breeders gave the dog the name Labrador to differentiate between it and the Newfoundland dog, also descended from the fishermen's dogs.
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on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 1/17/2007 11:20:00 AM.
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1/18/2007 01:31:00 AMNo surpise here! Labs rock! Espically CHOCOLATE ONES!!!! :)
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