Asta is a spectacular dog. She oozes service dog type and is a cherished member of our Career Dog family. We have nothing short of endless praise for Asta – please find Asta’s temperamental assessment below, which was undertaken while she was still based in the USA….

Temperament

Human Sociability: Solid, friendly people interest. Interactive. Connected.
Compliance: Gentle under the touch. Will yield to pressure. Relaxed on her back and in peoples’ arms. Robust on the lead and aware of its limits.

Initiative/Confidence: Solid. Readily explores environment. Confident with use of her body. Will initiate movement to novel footing and raised surfaces. No evidence of crouching or slinking posture. Engaged with surroundings; readily approached large, colorful statues. She eagerly crossed thresholds of large, automatic doors on several occasions.

Arousal Level: Physically robust. Displayed Labrador-scoots in the out of doors. Puppy did not display any signs of visual overstimulation or high arousal with movement. Displayed age-appropriate curiosity.

Biddability: Responsive and eager to engage in lure based training exercise. We worked on a lure to down position using dry biscuit as lure. When the puppy reached an initial frustration level she continued to offer behaviors and remained engaged in the activity. She displayed initiative to find the successful point of reward. She was able to focus on the exercise in a large, open, outdoor area with a fair amount of activity around her. She had a very exuberant bite and attempted to position the food reward into her molars. She was moderately responsive to the “ouch” technique. In response, she would hesitate momentarily and attempt to return to an exuberant bite. She did not accelerate her mouthy behavior.

Body Sensitivity: None noted. She displayed no behavior change while wearing a soft cloth puppy coat. She entered the coat with a food lure. She did not display any avoidance or resistance to the coat or the handling required to attach it.

Noise Sensitivity: None noted. I exposed her to banging a board against a metal and wooden bench both in and out of her range of vision. She displayed no detectable reaction.

Dog Sociability: Curious and playful. She displayed play bowing, scooting and sitting for attention with a small breed fluffy dog who was restrained behind an ex-pen. She barked for attention with that dog and quickly redirected to the humans present. In the out of doors she sat for attention from an adult Labrador. She readily accepted being restrained from the adult dog and readily redirected her attention to the handler when the dog left the scene.

In summary, she is 100% Labrador. Asta presents herself as an eager, fun-loving, engaged companion who is very physically competent.

Conformation

Expression: Cheerful and intelligent. Shows depth of character.

Profile: Average outline; level topline, short coupled. Long, narrow tail. Adequate bone. Attractive, breed typical head.

Condition: Good weight. Clean with slight dandruff. Good coat shade; lacks undercoat. Tattoo in one ear. Nice, solid stool. Readily relieved on lead.

Head: Correct bite, normal palate. Full, open ear canals. Nice skull development. Round, dark eye. Good width and breadth of muzzle. Nice ear set.

Front: Fair, lacks angulation. Average feet. Good depth and breadth of chest. Robust rib spring.

Rear: Average. Cow hocked; long rear pasterns. Average feet.

Movement: Can single track with room. More often her rear interferes with her front and she crabs to regulate her movement.

Genitalia: Normal nipple count and development. Slightly recessed, but not inverted, vulva. Clean.

Presence: Positive; a Labrador female with character. Her level of interaction and expression evokes positive emotion with the handler and those around her.