there has been an advert in the local paper for the last few days advertising silver labradors that have come from specially imported dogs and a mobile number to phone for more info.  Why do they need to be imported if they are chocolate to chocolate or chocs bred with yellows?  I phoned the mobile number but the phone was off so am none the wiser.  Is this a marketing ploy for gullible people or are there no 'breeders' of silver labs in this country.

If you put 'silver labradors' in the search function, you'll see that they've been discussed a few times on here :)

Hi ShaynLola, I already did the search before posting but my question related to the 'imported' aspect of the dogs being used and why they couldn't just use local dogs if they are determined to breed silver labs.

So far people over here seem to have been too sensible to jump on this particular bandwagon. Not any more, though. :(

No worries...I just knew it had been discussed before as I had cause to search for it myself recently :)

Is this in the UK, cheekychow, or are you in the US?  I've heard of silver labs quite a lot in the US, but not in the UK before.  Perhaps the lab clubs would like to know about this breeding??

There are only three accepted colours in labradors; black, chocolate and yellow. :)

Cheekychow is in Scotland so unfortunately it looks as though the Silver bandwagon has come to the UK!!! 

I saw an ad in my local paper sighed and shook my head. I think it'll be the same paper

Cava14una, it's probably the same paper - the local one that was also advertising husky/newfoundland crosses that look just like newfoundlands! - if they wanted something that looked like a newfoundland why bother crossing with a husky :rolleyes:

That's the one, makes you wonder doesn't it

>the local one that was also advertising husky/newfoundland crosses

:( :(

Take a big, powerful but bidable breed and cross it with an independent one and what do you get?  A recipe for dogs ending up in rescue if ever I saw one :( Besides, I'd have thought if they were breeding for cash, they could get more for a purebred Newfoundland than a cross

I'd have thought that too, seems a bizarre cross but maybe they thought it would look like a husky with the temperament of a newfie.  There are some total dafties out there!

I think I have the same paper you both mention!   Yesterday's edition by any chance?  I saw both adverts too, I'm surprised someone wasn't sitting there concocting some stupid name for the Newf x Huskies.

Huskoundlands? Newfoundskies? :rolleyes:

Silver in Labs isn't a colour. It's an absence of colour. It is caused by the same 'faulty' gene that causes chocolate. I put faulty in commas because is isn't faulty in the normal sense of the word, that is to say, there is nothing actually wrong with the chocolate dog, it's just a black with less pigment. I've consulted my zoologist friend. As part of her study of African wild dogs, she had to study the genetics of colour. Basically, according to research done by the genetecist Paul Fornier, if you attach the hair from any animal to a solenoid and pass an electric current through it, it will give off light in one of three colours, red, blue or yellow. The black of labradors is red/black, so any weakening of pigment causes the chocolate colour, (as opposed to the blue/black, where a dilution of pigment causes a grey colour). Dogs from the yellow range always breed true to colour, (Irish Setters, Golden Retrievers etc), because the chemical makeup of the yellow range is different to the other two, yellow being silicous and red and blue being potassic. The two cannot blend, or mix, so mating a yellow to a chocolate will not produce a silver. Rather, silver is the result of breeding pale chocolate to pale chocolate, (the intensity of a chocolate coat depends on the degree to which the dogs colour gene is affected), then breeding the offspring to pale chocolate, with each successive generation, the pigment fault becomes more intense. To understand the colouring of Labradors, you have to first of all understand that black ALWAYS dominates. A zoologist would describe black labs as being either pure or hybrid. The pure black does not carry yellow and can only produce black or chocolate, (for chocolate to be produced there has to be the 'faulty' gene on both sides). Yellow can only be produced if two yellow genes meet. So if a pure black is mated to a yellow, all the pups will be black but all will carry the yellow gene as the black gene in one has met the yellow gene in the other, but the black has dominated.So all the pups will be hybrid black. If a Hybrid black is mated to a yellow, where the yellow gene in the hybrid black meets the yellow gene of the yellow, the pup will be yellow. Where the black gene meets the yellow, the pup will be hybrid black. Two pure blacks can only produce black. Pure black to hybrid black can only produce black, but if the black gene in the pure black has met the yellow gene in the hybrid black, then the pup will be hybrid black. If both black genes meet then the pup will be pure black. A hybrid black to hybrid black can produce yellow, hybrid black and pure black in the same litter. Curiously, if Labrador breeders decided that three colours were too many, and decided to get rid of one, the easiest colour to get rid of would be black. As the black gene cannot hide inside another colour waiting to pop up at a later date
all that would be needed would be for only yellows and chocolates to be bred and within a very short time, chocolate would become the dominant colour.

Joy :(

if you look at pictures of 'silver' labs they have a look of a weimanarer about them which is how the silver probably got there, so 'silver' labs are not labs at all.

tanya

I must get the same paper as I saw both those adverts in my local one this morning. Makes for depressing reading thats for sure:rolleyes:

theres a lot more of us tayside people on Champdogs than I realised!  GillW I've pm'd you.