I have a yellow Labrador Retriever and I love him!. There are some things about him that will sometimes drive me crazy though. He is a very clingy animal. He is constantly in my business. He slobbers and drools down the sides of his mouth occasionally and looks like snot. He is full of energy and wants to play several times a day. His temperament is very sweet. He is only 15 months old so that maybe the reason he still has such high energy. We invested in him and took him to obedience school at 16 weeks. I would highly suggest obedience school for your Labs. He does shed a lot, but we knew that before we got him. He loves to play ball. He loves walks as well. Even though he has some bad characteristics his good characteristics out weigh them. I love him very much and he is definitely a part of our family.

I have two black Labrador Retrievers: Ben and Holly. Ben is an old man now at 13 years old. Holly is his young pal and she's coming up for 3 years old.
We found Ben to be a handful when he was younger. He loved to explore - sometimes to his folly. He pulled a lot on his lead. He twice escaped from the garden [after taking a running jump over the fence] and spent a few happy hours in the custody of her majesty's finest. He finally got his brains at around 5 years old! His intelligent eyes hides a brain of mush. His favourite games are now sniffing and throwing me a deaf ear at every opportunity. [especially when its pouring with rain]. He has however helped me raise three children and is still totally adored by everyone. Poor thing now has arthritic hips but still gives the best cuddles. His snoring would put any man to shame.
Holly is Ben's best friend. They get on tremendously. She is rather beautiful and knows it. She is what a lab should be. She really is intelligent. Her obedience is amazing. She loves food. She is always on the hunt for any tasty morsel. Everyone loves her and she loves everyone. She is still small and loves nothing more than chasing after her ball at the park. We don't run her as hard as we could as we are trying to watch her hips. She loves human contact and will sit on your feet to get attention. She is prone to flatulence, but I suspect she gets blamed for much more than she actually does. We had her dressed which seemed to calm her down quite a bit.
Both dogs are loving and very patient with children. Children = Food as far as my two are concerned. They are also very tactile dogs and love being petted.
I can't think of any downsides to owning a lab. They do shed hair quite a bit. My two spend most of the summer outside in their big kennel and only come indoors at night. A weekly brush helps. Getting your lab insured is a good idea as they are prone to arthritis and such like. The vets bills can add up.

I have a 8 month old black lab and she is a wonderful family pet. There is not much to say against these great dogs and I would call them the perfect family pet. They will play with anyone, learn to fetch within days, and are a joy to play with in a pond of stream. These dogs love the water and ours learned to leap after sticks when they were thrown into the pond. the only negative side to owning a lab is their tendency towards hip displaysia in their later years. Buy a lab only from a referenced breeder and her your pup x-rayed for weak hips. Other than that enjoy this friendly happy dog, it is definitely the top pick for a family dog.

My Labrador retriever, Casey is almost 6 years old and he is very sweet, and good with my 2 year old sister. Although he was very hyper when he was younger, and I've heard that as a trait of labs, until he was almost 3, he is a good family dog. Casey isn't very loyal at all, if there was someone with food outside he'd just run, even if they were standing in the middle of the busy street...and we're not able to take him off his leash or else he will run away. That might not be a problem on his part, though, maybe we should have taken him off leash more when he was younger. He never had a problem with barking until very recently, when we shipped him back from Australia, and he was exposed to many other dogs and evidently learned to bark there, so now we have a tiny problem with that. But it's worth it considering what a great dog he's been over the years.