I have a 20 week old black labrador who has developed yellow hair on her stomach. Her litter brother and sisters were black and yellow. Mum was yellow and dad was black.
Is this a problem with yellow black matings?

Gosh, John's going to love this one!!! (He's our resident Lab person!) I think you may well have something of interest to the labrador genetics site, is you can take a photo of your dog upside down!
Try looking at

http://www.labradorretriever.com/breederstory.html,

and more specifically, the genetics pages on

http://www.labbies.com/genetics.htm

Have fun and enjoy!!
Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

Leigh Note:Edit for clickable links :-)

I had a black lab (with papers) with brown (chocolate) flecks on her legs.
Which suited her as she was a total clown. I never knew whether to laugh or cry at her antics. This was many years ago and my family still recall her more memorable escapades.
Beccy

If I understand it correctly, some labs, and a few flatcoats as well carry the sable gene. which will give this banding on the legs that you describe. That's not to be confused with the brownish dead hair that a black dog will lose when it's moulting.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

Why do you lot keep ganging up on me? :)
I've seen many blacks with the occasional yellow hair and have had a yellow with a few black hairs but theoretically mating blacks to yellows will not produce two colour puppies! So saying you do sometimes get a small white patch on the chest and although not desirable is permissible. (One of mine had this) Unfortunately there are things going on in the breed which are not to the credit of the people concerned and I'm afraid we are likely to see more and more colour problems.

After saying all that, I am not knocking your dog! All Labradors are perfect in every detail and can do no wrong in my eyes!

Regards, John

Got my interest John, what things are going on? No names, of course, but it would be as well to know if 'things are going on'. May be I'm just nosey. JH

I'll post this later in the day when I get a bit more time Jackie.

Regards, John

I've added a post onto the General board titled "For Jackie and all"

John

Thanks John I'll go and find it. JH

I used to work with Labs and this type of marking was called "splashing"
I believe it can happen to any colour but usually black.

Welcome to the forum Dawn :-) Leigh

Another question on this subject John, you might have an answer. I have noticed with my manic GSP that when he has minor cuts from charging through everything the hair seems to grow back white on the scars, even where it was liver before, and talking to someone from the labrador fraternity they said there are a number of black labs with the same thing, any ideas. Ingrid

We had a black & white GSP that used to fight with my GSD and where he got a wound, the hair would grow white so compared to when he was a puppy, he had more ticking on him.

I know it does happen but as to why, I have no idea. On a slightly different note, I used to find it so interesting watching the spots appearing on the Dalmatian I used to have. Until I had one I believed that the Dalmatian puppy was just a miniature of the adult! We live and learn!

John

I believe that once the pigment in the skin is destroyed by a deep wound then the hair will lack pigmentation therefore regrow as white rather than a colour. If the wound was not that deep then the pigment will remain.

I was talking to someone the other day, and he said a few years back he had a lab who was black with yellow tipped paws!