Labrador Retriever Trivia
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49 free Labrador Retriever trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Labrador Retriever trivia quiz covers the most popular dog breed of the last half-century from every angle: where the Lab really came from (a British breed built from an extinct Newfoundland fishing dog), the aristocrats who founded it in the 1880s, the first yellow and chocolate dogs on record, and the physical kit that makes it a water retriever, from the otter tail and webbed paws to the soft mouth. There is a full section on famous Labradors too: Endal, the most decorated dog in the world; Zanjeer, the Mumbai bomb-detection dog buried with state honours; Salty and Roselle, who led their blind owners out of the World Trade Center; Frida of the Mexican Navy; Marley of Marley & Me; and the pets of presidents from Bill Clinton to Vladimir Putin. Health, genetics and guide-dog statistics round it out. Questions run from easy to expert with a difficulty score on each, so it suits a family quiz night or a serious dog-lover's challenge. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and breed references and each question carries its citation. Fans of the breed should also try our Dogs and Golden Retriever quizzes.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Labrador Retriever takes its name from a region of which former colony?
Newfoundland
The Labrador region is the mainland part of today's Newfoundland and Labrador; the dogs themselves came from the island's fishing ports.
Q 02In American Kennel Club shows, the Labrador competes in which of the club's seven breed groups?
Sporting
Sporting is the AKC's group for spaniels, pointers, setters and retrievers, because those breeds were first developed to work closely with hunters, finding and fetching their quarry.
Q 03Labradors descend from which now-extinct working breed of the North Atlantic fishing fleets?
St. John's water dog
The St. John's water dog died out in the 1980s, but the small white chest patch some Labradors still carry is a leftover of its black-and-white tuxedo markings.
Q 04Yellow Labradors range in shade from creamy white all the way to what?
Fox-red
Fox-red is not a separate colour: kennel clubs record it as plain yellow, and breeders have been selecting ever darker dogs because the deep shade sells.
Q 05Spike, a Labrador-mastiff cross found in a California animal shelter, played the title dog in which 1957 Disney film?
Old Yeller
Old Yeller nearly had another star: trainer Frank Weatherwax had paid three dollars for Spike, and Disney first turned the dog down as too playful to look fierce.
Q 06Luath the Labrador crosses the Canadian wilderness with a bull terrier and a Siamese cat in which 1963 Disney film?
The Incredible Journey
The Incredible Journey came from Sheila Burnford's novel, and its 1993 remake, Homeward Bound, recast the trio: young Luath became Shadow, a wise old golden retriever.
Q 07Before 'chocolate' caught on, brown Labradors went by which less appetising colour name?
Liver
Liver was the shooting world's word, and brown Labradors stayed rare until the 1960s, when pet owners took to them and much preferred to call the colour chocolate.
Q 08Blind of Arden, a champion Labrador owned by Averell Harriman, made the cover of which magazine in 1938?
Life
Life pictured the four-year-old after he won America's top retriever stake of 1938, capping a faultless trial by swimming to an island to find a duck he had not seen fall.
Q 09A nameless black Labrador that wandered the grounds of Headley Grange gave which band the title of a 1971 song?
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin needed a name for the opening track of their fourth album, and since the title appears nowhere in the lyrics they borrowed one from the visiting retriever: Black Dog.
Q 10A Labrador puppy became the advertising mascot of which household product on both sides of the Atlantic?
Toilet paper
Toilet paper got its puppy by accident: Britain's Andrex meant to film a little girl trailing a roll through the house, regulators feared it would encourage waste, and a Labrador pup took her place. America's Cottonelle adopted one too.
Q 11The Labrador's characteristic tail is compared to that of which animal?
Otter
Otter is the word both kennel clubs' standards use: thick at the base and tapering to the tip, the tail works as a powerful rudder that helps the swimming dog turn.
Q 12Which physical feature helps a Labrador swim?
Fully webbed paws
Fully webbed paws help a Labrador swim fast, which suited the breed's first job: its ancestors swam through icy water to bring in fishermen's nets.
Q 13A retriever's 'soft mouth' means it can do what?
Carry game without damaging it
To carry game without damaging it, a retriever holds the bird gently in its jaws; a hard-mouthed dog bites down, and a crushed bird is no use to the shooter.
Q 21A 2018 study of British Labradors found that dogs of which colour live about 10% shorter lives?
Chocolate
Chocolate Labradors lived a median 10.7 years against 12.1 for the rest, and the researchers suspect that breeding for the recessive colour narrows the gene pool.
Q 22In 1999 Lucy, minister David Blunkett's Labrador-cross guide dog, greeted an opponent's House of Commons speech how?
By being sick
By being sick: the next speaker said the same opponent gave him 'a sense of nausea', so he found it 'rather appropriate' that the minister's dog had been ill.
Q 23A 2006 study of four breeds trained at The Seeing Eye guide-dog school found which was least likely to graduate?
German Shepherds
Q 14Two yellow Labradors can produce puppies of which colours?
Yellow only
Yellow only, because the colour is recessive: each yellow parent has two copies of the masking gene and nothing else to hand on, whereas two black Labradors can have puppies of all three colours.
Q 15A broken MC1R gene makes Labradors yellow; in people, faulty copies lie behind which hair colour?
Red
Red hair and yellow fur share a cause: when the MC1R receptor fails, pigment cells stop making dark eumelanin and turn out yellow-red pheomelanin instead.
Q 16Along with the tail, what do the Kennel Club and AKC standards call a 'distinctive feature' of the Labrador?
Coat
Coat joins the tail in both standards: short, dense and weather-resistant, it suited icy North Atlantic water, where long-haired retrievers came out encrusted with ice.
Q 17Besides brown, which eye colour do Labrador breed standards accept?
Hazel
Hazel joins brown in the British standard, while the American one allows it only in chocolates and warns that black or yellow eyes give a dog a harsh expression.
Q 18America's Labrador Retriever Club suspects that 'silver' Labradors owe their grey colour to crosses with which breed?
Weimaraner
Weimaraner is the suspect because every dog of that breed carries the dilute gene that turns brown fur silver, a gene no Labrador was recorded with for decades.
Q 19In the United States, field-bred and show-bred Labradors are often mislabelled 'American' and what?
English
English is the tag for the stockier show type, but America's breed club calls it unsuitable: lean field dogs are bred in England too, and most Labradors sit between the two styles.
Q 20Vincent, a yellow Labrador, belongs to a boy named Walt in which TV drama?
Lost
Lost cast a Hawaiian dog with no acting experience, and although Vincent is male, the Labrador who played him, five-year-old Madison, was female.
German Shepherds were the least likely to graduate and Labrador-golden crosses the most, though shepherds and goldens did better when given longer than the standard four months.
Q 24Which breed ended the Labrador's 31-year reign as the American Kennel Club's most popular, topping the 2022 rankings?
French Bulldog
The French Bulldog climbed from outside the top ten to first place within a decade, its small size and quiet manner suiting city apartments, and pushed the Labrador down to second.
Q 25Endal, Britain's much-decorated assistance Labrador, could operate which of these?
A cash machine
A cash machine held no fears: Endal put the card in and took the money out, and when a car knocked his owner from his wheelchair he pulled him into the recovery position and fetched his phone.
Q 26The sign-off 'Sit, Ubu, sit' ended episodes of which 1980s sitcom, over a photo of its creator's black Labrador?
Family Ties
Family Ties creator Gary David Goldberg named his production company after Ubu, his beloved Labrador, and later borrowed the sign-off for the title of his memoir, Sit, Ubu, Sit.
Q 27Sully, the service dog at George H. W. Bush's 2018 funeral, was named after which person?
Chesley Sullenberger
Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger landed a stricken airliner on the Hudson River in 2009, saving all 155 people aboard; his namesake went on to comfort wounded veterans at Walter Reed military hospital.
Q 28Zanjeer, the Labrador who sniffed out explosives after the 1993 serial bombings, served which Indian city's police?
Mumbai
Mumbai's bomb squad came to rely on him: days after the blasts he barked at a parked scooter packed with RDX, the first of at least three further attacks he helped avert.
Q 29Which two-word caption did a Bush family spokesman give his photo of service dog Sully lying beside the late president's casket?
Mission complete
Mission complete, wrote Jim McGrath in December 2018; the Labrador then flew to Washington with the casket, and afterwards joined a military hospital's dog team.
Q 30Frida, the goggle-wearing rescue Labrador who became a national hero after a 2017 earthquake, served which country's navy?
Mexico
Mexico's navy retired her with a ceremony in 2019, when her handlers hung up the goggles and boots and gave her a chew toy; she stayed on to help train younger rescue dogs.