The Great Pyrenees Lab Mix: A Fusion of Loyalty and Strength

Great Pyrenees Lab Mix is a unique hybrid that combines the gentle nature of the Great Pyrenees with the friendly and outgoing personality of the Labrador Retriever.

In this blog, we’ll explore everything you need to know about this remarkable mix, often called the “Pyrador.” From their majestic appearance to their loyal and loving temperament, the Great Pyrenees Lab Mix is a breed that captures hearts.

Whether you’re considering bringing one of these gentle giants into your home or simply curious about this intriguing mix, our guide will provide you with insights into their care, training, and what makes them such special companions.

Let’s delve into the world of Pyradors, where the best traits of two beloved breeds come together.

Breed Profile of the Pyrador

Below is a brief description of the origin and history behind the Great Pyrenees Lab Mix.

But if you’re in a rush, here’s a quick look at the breed characteristics:

A Great Pyrenees Lab mix, also called a Pyrador, a Lab Great Pyrenees Mix, or a Labreenes, is a crossbreed between a purebred Labrador Retriever and a purebred Great Pyrenees.

It is one of the more recent mixed-breed dogs growing in popularity among lovers of the parent breeds.

As with all hybrid crossbreeds, a Great Pyrenees Lab mix bears the best of the genetic, temperament, and physical traits of the parent breeds.

However, a Pyrador may also inherit health and temperament issues from either parent. 

Today, the Lab Great Pyrenees mix is bred as a family pet, but the parent dogs were originally bred for two completely different purposes.

Let’s take a quick look at the Pyrador’s parent breeds to get a broad picture of where the Great Pyrenees Lab Cross comes from.

The Great Pyrenees

The Great Pyrenees, also called Pyrenean Mountain dog or simply Pyr, is a working dog originally bred to guard sheep against wolves and other human and wildlife predators.

The breed’s name comes from their origin, the Pyrenees Mountains, which separate France and Spain.

The Pyrs are said to originate from the French side, while their counterparts, the Pyrenean Mastiff dog, originated from the Spanish side of the Mountains. 

The first Great Pyrenees dogs can be traced back to around 3000 BC.

Pyrs were recognized as Royal dogs of France in the 17th century because they proved useful in protecting the castle at King Louis XIV’s court. 

Regarding the temperament of this longtime guard dog, the Pyrs’ courage and great patience while guarding sheep in freezing mountain temperatures made them the renowned guard dogs they are still known as today.

Do you want to know why Pyrs are great dogs? Check out this article, 11 Reasons Why the Great Pyrenees Are Good Dogs.

With time, livestock predators decreased, and Pyrs became less common. Later, the arrival of Pyrs in North America helped in the efforts to preserve the Great Pyrenees dogs. The AKC registered Pyrs as a breed in 1933. 

See also: Weighing the Pros and Cons of a Great Pyrenees.

The Great Pyrenees ranks 69th on the ACK’s list of most popular dogs.

The Labrador Retriever

Labrador Retriever is a household name in the world of dog ownership.

Discovered by English nobles in the easterly province of Newfoundland in Canada, these dogs were brought to the UK in the early 1800s for their impressive fowl retrieving skills. 

It remains unclear why the breed bears the name Labrador, a western city of Newfoundland and Labrador province of Canada.

As they are commonly known today, Labs were refined and standardized through breeding in the UK and registered by the English Kennel Club in 1903.

Their retrieval skills were used to recover game, not just in water but even on land.

The AKC registered Labrador Retrievers as a breed in 1917. Since then, Labs has won the hearts of Americans for their signature sweet and eager-to-please temperament, remaining America’s No.1 dog breed from 1991 to date. 

If you want to know more about the gorgeous Labrador, check out this post: Are Labradors Good Family Dogs?

Like all other hybrid dogs, the Pyrador is not officially recognized as a breed by the AKC. However, you can register your Pyrador as a mixed breed with the Dog Registry of America.

Being a mixed breed also means an AKC or English Kennel Club breed standard for the Pyrador does not exist. 

If you love the Lab Great Pyrenees mix, we’ll tell you what to expect from crossbreeding these two great working dogs in the rest of the article. But first…

Unveiling the Distinct Appearance of the Great Pyrenees Lab Mix

The Great Pyrenees Lab mix has physical features inherited from both parents: a broad head, black nose, brown or hazel eyes, long and thick tail, and black, white, yellow, chocolate, or a mixture of these coat colors. 

These features can vary from one Pyrador to another depending on how much of each feature the Great Pyrenees Lab cross inherits from each parent. It could be a fifty-fifty inheritance from each parent or a higher percentage from the sire or dam.

Here’s a quick focus on these Pyrador features.

• Head: A Pyrador has a fairly broad skull with a somewhat wedge shape, borrowing from both parents. The head is proportionate to the dog’s size, and the muzzle is wide and deep, blending smoothly with the skull. 
• Eyes, nose, and ears: Labreenes have faces and eyes that are somewhere between the extremely happy and kind eyes of the Lab and the somewhat serious look of the Pyr. The eyes are medium-sized and brown or hazel in color. The nose is generally black, but it could be brown if the Labrador parent is chocolate. The ears are long, triangular, and floppy.
• Tail: Considering the long tails of both parents, the Lab Great Pyrenees mix bears a long and thick tail with medium to long hairs. The tail is typically carried low, but the dog may curve the tail over his back when aroused.
• Coat type and color: Labs and Pyrs both have double coats, with Great Pyrenees having long coats while Labradors have medium-length coats. As such, Pyradors will come with double coats but may show variation in coat hair length depending on which dog parent they inherit from most.

As for coat color, your Lab Great Pyrenees mix can come in one of the parent dogs’ coat colors or a mixture of those: black, yellow, and chocolate from the Lab or solid white and white with markings from the Pyr.

Exploring the Size Range

The Great Pyrenees Lab mix is a large dog. Considering both their parent breeds are large, a male Pyrador will weigh around 65lbs to ≥100lbs (29.48 to 45.35 kg) while a female will weigh about 55lbs to ≥85lbs (24.94 to 38.55 kg). 

Female Pyradors are approximately 21.5-29 inches (54.61-73.66 cm) in height, while males can grow to about 22.5-32 inches (57.15-81.28 cm).

See a summary of these Pyrador size estimates in the table below:

The minimum height and weight apply for Pyradors at 12 months, as younger dogs can weigh and measure less.

Great Pyrenees Lab Mix Temperament

Pyradors are good dogs and will inherit a bit of the patient and calm qualities of the Great Pyrenees and a bit of the outgoing and playful nature of the Labrador Retriever.

How much of the parent temperaments a Pyrador inherits will vary with each dog.

Depending on how much your Pyrador inherits from each parent, your dog can be:

• Mostly calm and quiet with pronounced protective and guarding instincts of the Great Pyrenees parent and probably a bit self-willed and not easy to train.
• Friendly and playful with the distinctive pleasant personality of the Labrador, willing to please and, therefore, easy to train. 
• Fifty-fifty of each parent is typically friendly with the family, has a fair balance for friendliness with strangers, and is mainly trainable or protective and loyal like both parents.

Pyrador breeders and prospective owners can only guess what traits their puppies will inherit from their parents despite these temperament estimations.

Whichever combination your puppy arrives with, early and proper training is paramount.

How To Train a Great Pyrenees Lab Mix 

Did you know that mixed breeds are easier to train, according to a study on owner-perceived differences between mixed and pure breeds?

This is because they inherit trainability traits from a more diverse pool of genes than a purebred dog would.

Higher trainability also means your mixed-breed dog is not just an average intelligence dog, as many may tend to think.

In other words, your Pyrador can be trained with the same techniques you would use with a purebred Lab or Pyr, probably with quicker and better results.

Here are 5 tips on how to train your Great Pyrenees mix:

1. Use Positive Reward-Based Training

It’s a universally known fact that positive reward-based training works best with any dog breed. Dogs learn behavior associated with good outcomes (rewards) and eventually repeat the behavior naturally without needing the reward.

For a Pyrador, reward-based training will be effective due to two key reasons:

• It will inherit a bit of the Lab’s eager-to-please disposition and love for food, which you can use to convince your Pyrador to heed commands.
• Pyrs have a sense of independence and stubbornness and do not find obeying commands exciting. As such, a training method that can tap into their preferences (like a favorite treat or a praise cue) will make training easier.

Of course, you’ll need to study your Pyrador to discover what they consider a reward and use it for training.

2. Be Overly Patient

I purposely used the term “overly patient” because you’ll need that to counter any Pyr stubbornness passed on to your Great Pyrenees Lab cross. 

If your Pyrador is more like their Pyr parent in stubbornness, it will take a few repetitions before the dog obeys your command. Simply avoid saying the command several times in a given instance and, instead, wait a few seconds before doing so. 

If your Pyrador takes more after the Lab parent, your commands will find a receptive pet, as long as you give some good treats.

3. Let Your Dog Know That You Are in Charge

Letting your Pyrador know you are in charge has nothing to do with being the alpha or using aversive training methods. Rather, it is about being confident and consistent with what you ask of your Pyrador. 

If your dog has more of the Great Pyrenees’ independence, he will test you to see if he can escape being the autonomous sheep guard who acts independently. 

Even if your dog has more of the Lab’s temperament, letting him have his way can make the Great Pyrenees Lab Cross harder to train. The best rule is to stick to what you ask of your Pyrador. 

4. Create a Strong Bond With Your Pyrador

Any dog whose owner loves them will want to keep things that way. That’s also true with a Pyrador. If your Great Pyrenees Lab mix has a strong relationship with you, he’ll want to preserve it with obedience.

You can strengthen this bond with daily walks, a visit to the park, a vacation together, or simply spending some bonding time in the house.

5. Control Your Pyrador’s Environment

Controlling a Pyrador’s environment is a core training element for a dog whose parent tends to bark and escape while the other is food-motivated.

It means limiting your dog’s exposure to situations that trigger extreme barking. These include access to windows facing roads or pathways and ensuring the fence is firm enough to preempt an escape. 

Controlling your dog’s environment also implies feeding your Pyrador on a schedule instead of leaving food around all day and letting your dog eat at will.

Remember that Labs and Pyrs are prone to being overweight for different breed-related reasons, and your Pyrador could have this problem.

Health and Lifespan

Did you know that mixed-breed dogs actually top the list of most popular dogs in America and the UK? It appears that more and more dog owners are buying the research-backed fact that mixed-breed dogs are healthier and live longer.

But does that apply to all mixed dog breeds, including the Great Pyrenees Lab mix? Let’s look at the health problems faced by Pyradors. 

Common Health Problems

Like its Labrador Retriever and Great Pyrenees parents, a Great Pyrenees Lab mix is generally healthy. However, the Pyrador could inherit a susceptibility to diseases that are common to either of its parents, as shown:

Nonetheless, Pyradors may show greater resistance to these diseases due to their hybrid genetic status that comes with a broader pool of genes from two purebred parent dogs. 

To support your Great Pyrenees Lab cross’s predisposition to better health, a study found that:

• Certain diseases are more common in purebred dogs than in mixed-breed dogs. These diseases include some of those common in Labs and Pyrs, like Elbow dysplasia, eye problems, hypoadrenocorticism, and bloat.
• Mixed breed dogs only showed prevalence for ruptured cranial cruciate ligament, which is not a common condition in either Labs or Pyrs.
• Both purebred and mixed-breed dogs have equal susceptibility to certain diseases. The only disease that Labs and Pyrs are prone to is hip and elbow dysplasia.

Life Expectancy

Great Pyrenees Lab mix will live for approximately 10-12 years, just like their Pyr and Lab parents.

However, your Pyrador has greater chances of living longer, considering the broader pool of genes that the dog inherits from crossbreeding a Lab and a Pyr. 

FAQs

How Much Does a Pyrador Cost?

The cost of a Pyrador varies from breeder to breeder depending on factors like location, the parent dogs’ lineage, and whether you are buying a puppy or adopting an adult dog. A quick search through breeder sites found Pyrador prizes ranging from $500 to $1,000.

Do Great Pyrenees Lab Mix Shed?

The Great Pyrenees Lab mix is a high shedder since both their parents are heavy shedders, too. Also, due to their inherited double coat, Pyradors will blow their coats in spring and fall to adapt to extreme winter and summer temperatures.

Final Thoughts 

The Great Pyrenees Lab Mix is a remarkable blend of the gentle, protective nature of the Great Pyrenees and the friendly, energetic spirit of the Labrador Retriever.

With their distinctive appearance, considerable size, and loving temperament, they make excellent companions for families and individuals alike. Understanding and catering to their unique needs will ensure your Pyrador thrives, providing you with a loyal and affectionate friend.