We met a man over the weekend walking two lovely yellow labrador puppies four months old.  We said he was brave and had his hands full and he replied that they were no trouble, - he had previously had a flatcoat - enough said!! :)  

It just got me thinking though that these are the first yellow labs I have met for a very long time, particularly puppies.  We know several labs but they are all black and chocolate and just out of interest I wonder are these now more popular than the yellows and if so, why?  Or is it an area thing (we're in London).  Apparently the litter was half yellow, half chocolate.  I do love all labs but it was really nice to see these two.
xx

My auntie had real problems a few years ago trying to get hold of a yellow lab bitch, apparantly yellow litters were few and far between and the only ones that did have yellows only had dogs left - she ended up with a dog ;)

I must admit I only see chocolate and black around, very few yellows.

I wonder why that is, although I do like all colours.  Funnily enough liver flatcoats seem to be getting more popular and round here you are more likely to see a liver than a black.  I much prefer the blacks but that's just personal choice. :)

Yellows are my personal favourite followed closely by black :) I'm not very keen on the chocolate colouring.

Around us we have all different colours and I would say that Black is the most predominant as I know somebody has bred her bitch three times over the last four years and had at least 10 per litter and most have gone to homes in the village and surrounding area ! :rolleyes:

Yellow Labradors! These always were the poor relations of the blacks! When I started in Labs you could buy a yellow bitch for £25, yellow dog for £30, black bitch for £30 and a black dog for £35. How times have changed!! Chocolates were almost non existent. (And herein lies the rub) Because chocolates were so rare they commanded big (even in those days) money which attracted totally the wrong type of breeder and chocolates have been suffering for it ever since.

Because the colour yellow is carried as a recessive gene many of the old time breeders would not accept the colour at all. It was always said (Quite wrongly) that all recessive health problems would come out in them! I remember Mary Roslin Williams boasting that she had never had a yellow in her kennels! In fact the colour was not accepted for very many years and it was not until Mrs Wormald of the Knaith kennels forced the point in the show ring that they finally got established. Interestingly, When the Yellow Labrador Retriever Club was established in 1925 (It is still in being today) the yellow Labrador had a different breed standard to the black. This standard was used to judge them by right up to 1959!

I have a photo taken of me taking my puppy gundog class last month, one Flatcoat, two Goldens and eight black Labradors, not one single yellow! Over the last couple of years there have been a shortage of good yellow puppies come into the working field although there are a few very good working yellow dogs around so hopefully the puppies will soon be around.

A look in the show ring will show that there is no shortage of yellows in this area! Plenty around, although they never appear to have the shining coat of the black and as such do not stand out so well.

Best wishes, John

Thanks for taking the time to write that John - fascinating, when I was young we very rarely saw any colour other than yellow, even blacks were rare.  But I'm talking about pet homes and not working here and also films and television seem to use yellows. 
Of course as you'll know, much better than me, yellow flatcoats do very occasionally occur but this colour is totally unnacceptable in our breed.  I only know of one (although others on here I'm sure will know of others) but have no idea of its breeding.
We have mostly chocolate round here Lucy, luckily mostly with people who did a lot of research and travelled to find their puppies, haven't come across a bad temperament yet.
Best wishes
Alex

Hi Alex. It must be nearly 15 years ago now I attended a Flatcoat breed seminar organised by Barbara Harkin. Cyraine Dugdale opened the seminar with a short history of the breed including the moves in some quarters to accept yellow Flatcoats. No known for remaining silent I said that I was afraid that if it ever happened it would encourage the same mercenary breeding which was happening in Labradors and that Yellows would be bred irresponsibly.

As to yellow Flatcoats today, there are a very nice working pair around doing well in Gundog Working Tests at the moment.

Best wishes, John

My lab breeder friend commented last week that there seems to be more black labs about. My friend's bitch had 3 and 3 yellow and black, but here in the Isle of Man we have many more black - some yellows and hardly any chocolate.

My daughter who studies in Kiel in Germany was gobsmacked when she arrived in the area to find nothing but chocolate labs - loads of them. She was so amazed she took photos for days after her arrival - don't know why its happening there. She's not had time to go souce out a dog club to get the gist of what is happening, but will do soon.

         John you mention Mary Roslin williams never having a yellow in the kennel  on the front of her book all about the Labrador thier is a head study  of a yellow  Labrador Bitch "Poolstead Mary Rose"  bred by Mary Roslyn Williams  sired by a poolstead Stud dog and given to Didi Hepworth ( owner of the Poolstead kennels ) who chose the name so everyone would know who bred her all Poolstead Dogs have names begining with a P  just a usless piece of info

  Yorker

I've just checked my copy and you are right! I was just quoting a little item which stuck in my mind from back in the days when she wrote a column in Dog World years ago. That column was continued by Anne Roslin Williams after her death.

What I don't understand about Poolstead Mary Rose is why it does not have her Mansergh affix on it?

Best wishes, John

I do wonder 0of the experience or ethics of the breeder though, as I* understroodthat those who know whats what would never mix chocolate and Yellow as it will give rise to liver/poor pigmented yellows.

My aunties yellow lab has black skin, apparantly this is because one of the parents was black, I wonder if this is a fault.

That's interesting Brainless, so you're saying that the litter should not have been half and half?  I don't know much (at all) about labrador genetics so can't comment.
Best wishes

Good pigmentation is always desirable BB. I personally like to see plenty of black dogs in a yellow pedigree and although a yellow/yellow mating is perfectly acceptable I would still like to see the next generation go back to a black. This has two functions, it does help to keep the pigmentation but most importantly it opens up a whole new range of genes. Keep mating any one colour to the same colour and you would be needlessly restricting the gene pool.

Best wishes, John

One of the dogs to sire some of the very best Chocolate Labradors was the black Follytower Merrybrook Black Stormer. A beautiful dog (If a little chunky for my taste) who sired two chocolate show champions.

Trouble is Barbara, few people know or care how to breed a good chocolate. Find a black sire and mate it to your choc and with luck you will have 50% choc puppies. Why do that if you can mate choc to choc and get 100% choc and sell them for even more lovely money? Who cares if pigmentation goes by the board! It is so sad that people think so little about such a wonderful breed :(

Best wishes, John

No shortage of yellow Labs in the Manchester area :)
I have one (though she is more orange than yellow LOL as sire was Fox Red)
There are at good few yellows in the puppy classes at my dog club at the moment.

In our one and only litter from Purdey, we used a yellow sire - result was 9 yellows & 1 black - and all our family wanted black puppies :(

There was talk of "sharing" her, 6 months each, between my 2 sisters - but one settled for a yellow boy!

Margot

Theoretically you should have had half each Margot but obviously your bitch never studied the theory!

The fox reds can look stunning BusyDoggs although I try not to mention them. My fear is that they will become the chocolate Labrador of tomorrow. Breeding for a specific colour is bad enough but imagine the restricted gene pool available if anyone was foolish enough to start breeding for a specific shade! Incidentally, my Lucy was the fox red shade.

Best wishes, John  

<<The fox reds can look stunning BusyDoggs although I try not to mention them. My fear is that they will become the chocolate Labrador of tomorrow.>>

Mine too ........ horrid thought, I'd love Labs to lose some off their mass popularity.

i have to agree john, around here everyone is trying to sell fox red labradors for twice the price of other labs, in my book you get three shades of labradors black, yellow and choclate! yellow is just a differnt shade of yellow!!!!

and theres plenty of yellows around the yorkshire area i'm hoping my next litter will produce some yellows as my o/h wants to keepa yellow bitch :)

Clare

Ditto Lokis mum! Friend bred her black girl to a yellow dog. Result - 9 yellow pups. Her bitch had to have a yellow gene lurking.

We wanted a yellow bitch earlier this year but no good breeders had any,only blacks or chocolate,so off to crufts we went,plenty of litters planned,however we met shaun who we got our first lab off there and one off his ladies had 4 blacks and 2 yellows the day before,so he promised me a yellow bitch, sadly she died,so we ended up with another black.
Sheila.

My tess is yellow, her sire is chocolate and her dam black, she was the only yellow in a litter of blacks (7 pups inc tess), tess isnt just one 'shade' of yellow and is a lot darker in the summer months than the winter, when the light hits her you can see the shine on her coat but i agree it is not the same as seeing the shine on a black or even some chocolates.
I have breed tess twice the first to a chocolate and she had 2 chocolate pups and 4 black, the chocolates have a nice rich chocolate colour coat, the second time tess was mated to a black with a chocolate sire, and she had 2 chocolates and 8 black pups, again the chocolate was arich colour. We have often discussed what the outcome of tess to a yellow dog would produce and it always ended up with the same result we all agreed that she would have hardly any yellows (if any) compared to the number of blacks.  Lab coat colour genetics can be very confusing so John help if tess was to be put to a yellow dog what would colours would there be? (it is a theoretical as tess has now been spayed), from what i understand of the genetics if tess was put to a yellow with lots of yellow in its pedigree she would have higher odds of having a greater number of yellows than black, but if she was put to a yellow with a mix of black and yellows in its pedigree she would have higher odds of having more blacks than yellows, am i right in thinking this?

tanya

I'm no expert but I've always believed a yellow to yellow mating would only produce yellows.

Hi John, CH Follytower Merrybrook Black Stormer is My Emma's Great Grandfather. Just thought I would share that useless snippet of info. :)

Stormer is also at the back of all my Labradors Kay! His pedigree is very interesting. His sire was the Sandylands Tandy who's sire was Sandylands Tan who's sire was Sandylands Tweed of Blaircourt. His dam was Follytower Old Black Magic who's sire was Ballyduff Hollybranch of Keithray who's sire was Sandylands Tweed of Blaircourt! A perfect example in line breeding! Incidentally, Tweed's sire was Margi Cairns Ruler of Blaircourt, the dog who was (to me anyway) the sire of the modern Labrador Retriever

Best wishes, John

Have a look at this site. To me it is the best on the net for giving you an idea what colour Labrador puppies will turn out.

http://livingwaterslabradors.net/color.html

Best wishes, John

 
          I am no expert same as jen p but i have always understood that a yellow to yellow mating would only produce Yellow

Yellow to yellow will yield yellow. Yellow to chocolate is more complicated and would depend on what other recessive genes there are but could be all Choc, all black, black and choc or even black, choc and yellow. Have a look at the link I supplied and you will see.

A friend has built her working line of black Labradors up for years and was one hundred percent sertain that she had no yellow in her line. Her stud dog was mated to a yellow bitch and she told the breeder that the puppies would all be black. In the event there were two yellow bitches! So obviously her blacks DO contain the yellow gene. (Great for me because I may well be getting a puppy from the repeat mating!)

Best wishes, John

Is it treuw though John that no knowledgeable breeder would mate choc to yellow for a half and half litter as appears to be the case with the litter the OP got his pup from???

I could understand gettinYellow in a choc litter if the choc breeder used a black carrying yellow, but would not expoect half and half, only the odd one.

Chocolate to yellow gives rise to poor pigmentation. If the yellow had liver pigmentation then that mating would (theoretically) produce 50% chocolate and 50% yellow. If the yellow had good (black) pigmentation, then you could have expected to see a couple of blacks in the litter, though I guess this wouldn't always be the case. Though, no - I wouldn't expect breeders that strive to produce good puppies mating a chocolate to a yellow due to the poor pigmentation that arises. Even chocolate to chocolate can produce poor pigmentation which is why some breeders like to breed back to a black.

Knowledgable breeders try all sorts of things sometimes Barbara, on the basis that "It seemed like a good idea at the time!".

According the the chart, if a choc containing yellow was mated to a black containing both yellow and choc the resultant puppies would be half and half black and yellow with no chocolate puppies! My Beth was a choc bitch mated to a black dog and her pigmentation was never good. She was a yellow in a 50/50 yellow and choc litter.

Best wishes, John

John,

Is liver pigmentation recessive to black, or is the darker pigmentation just diluted? If you were to mate a yellow with black pigmentation to a yellow with liver pigmentation, do you know what type of pigmentation the resulting litter would have?

Many Thanks

Good question IC! I thing it is a dilution. As to which you would get? I believe pigmentation is easy to loose and very difficult to get back. My Beth was a product of (Taking the link I put earlier in this thread) a type 4 sire to a type 9 bitch. She herself was a type 7. (Yellow with poor pigmentation) Had she not been epileptic and had I mated her I would have looked for a type 2 stud. I would not have had any choc's in the puppies but hopefully I would have improved her pigmentation. If I really wanted a chocolate I would then have mated a good bitch pup from that litter to a type 3 dog. (Because I like yellows I would not have done but would have tried to mate to a type 2. this would have given me 50/50 black and yellow.)

Of course, we are talking colours here, but obviously there are far more important considderations than colour!

Best wishes, John

around here they are all mainley a black working type with a few choclates creepying in. all the yellows around seem to be fairley elderly.
personally i think yellow is my favorite colour for them

I have been reading this thread and wonder if you could help me. We have a 15 week old pup, who is liver/chocolate. Before we got him we did alot of research into the breed, before deciding on our breeder. John may remember me.

Woody's mum is black, and dad is a very well known black stud, dog. We were told that when we where looking for a liver lab, to look at the coat, the colours should be as dark as possible, like a rich dark terry's chocalate type.

When woody came home, he was just that, but over the last week or so, its as though his colour is changing, from just under his ears, to his tail his coat looks almost black, but from his nose, to under his ears, he's a milk choccy colour. Is there any reason for this

Any ideas
Alix

oops sorry, i didnt read my post properly, before i posted it. His mum, is liver

alix

The coat colour changes quite a bit as they grow Alix. Yellows often get quite a bit darker and chocolates often lighten up a bit. This is natural. In yellows it is often said to look at the colour of the ears and this is the colour the pup will end up. Not strictly true because the ears are often darker even in an adult yellow! Anna had spotty ears! So I'm not sure which of the colours she should have ended up! A breeder saw her at eye testing when she was a baby and straight away said "Oh, shes got **** in her line!" This flecking is often there as a baby but fades as the puppy grows.

Thing is Alix, a light choc often ends a but speckly, almost flecked as it lightens, the dark colour has room to lighten before it starts to loose its single colour.

Best wishes, John

Just a little note to say that Hugh, the Seventh Earl of Lonsdale, (he of Lonsdale belt fame) was known as the Yellow Earl - his carriages were all yellow, and so too were his dogs - all yellow Labradors.   I suppose this was in the 1920s.

When we lived at Lowther on the Estate, by chance, we kept the tradition, and brought our two yellow labs with us - well we had to, didn't we?    Before you ask, no, it wasn't in the 1920s, either!   

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

Whoops - he was the Fifth Earl of Lonsdale, not the seventh

Jo

Got demoted already Jo? ;)