Growing up, we always had dogs (usually two or three at once) since we had a decent sized piece of property. Our best dogs have always been Labs. We usually have had Chocolate ones, but now we have a female Chocolate and a male Black lab. Sadly, purebreed dogs often have medical problems and a previous chocolate lab of ours had epilepsy. We got the dog in the mid-90's. Well, about three years back, on Christmas morning, he had a really bad seizure. You could tell he just went totally brain dead and was in terrible pain. It was awful. Since it was Christmas and all, we couldn't get a hold of any local vets for help so we put him down ourselves. It was so heartbreaking... it was enough to make me seriously consider never owning an animal again. We were pretty traumatized for a while, but its better now. Anytime you have a beloved pet with medical problems, its always a tender subject. You have to do what you think is best and love them as much as you can while they are alive.