I recently bought a new Labrador Puppy. I already have a 3 year old Black Labrador. When I went to see my new puppy the breeder said that she had been going to keep her for showing but after a couple of weeks brown marks appeared on her legs, bottom and face. The breeder said she had counf some information on the internet about labradors with brindle. However when I took my new Labrador to my vet he said that he had Labradors all his life and had never seen a Labrador with marks like my dog. He insisted that my new dog was not a Labrador a Pedrigree and was a cross-breed. I was quite upset at this as my new Puppy looks exactly the same as my other dog when she was a puppy, I have the eye-test and hip score documents and the Certficate from the Kennel Club. There were 6 puppies in the litter, 5 black and 1 brown, only 3 of them had the brindle marks.

Has anyone else ever seen or heard or this ??

There are (allegedly) Labradors around with brindle markings although for my part I believe it is a throwback in there somewhere. One thing is certain, it is not right! Colours have been talked about on here many times before but basically there are just the three colours and anything else is wrong.

So saying, colour whether right or wrong, does not make the slightest difference to what you feel for the dog. Some of my Labs have not been particularly good in appearance but they all found a place in my heart. :)

Regards, John

Hi,
Your lab may have a throwback with regard to the colour. The oldest breeds of retriever are the Curlycoat and the Flatcoated retriever, these were developed from the St. Johns Labrador, which was a brindle coloured boat dog, the modern labrador also came from this common ancestor. As each breed was developed the original breeders changed the type and colour and working ability through crossing with other breeds. Even now there are some golden retrievers which will have black hairs, and in flatcoats it is not uncommon for dogs to have white hairs. All the retriever breeds were interbred up until the late 1970's, and dogs from these litters registered as which type (or breed if you like), they resembled. Hence some labradors will have a definate wave in their coats, along the back, which they got from the flatcoat.
During the early years of the flatcoat it was not uncommon for dogs to have ginger tan eye brows or brindle legs, there are some born right up to the present day which have white flashes of hair on their chests!
From what you are saying, I do wonder though whether your puppy has a lot of chocolate breeding, which has come out as a patchy area on the coat. To keep a chocolate line dark in colour, you need to breed to black dogs carrying chocolate colouring. To breed too often chocolate to chocolate or to breed chocolate to yellow, you do get very wishy washy colours. I had a flatcoat which was from a black sire, and black dam, both carried liver colour, (which is the same as chocolate), very strongly. When the puppy changed coat, it ended up as an adult with a black back and liver every where else! Equally, your new puppy may change colour again one it has shed it's puppy coat. A friend had a flatcoat which was born a grey and it turned jet black after shedding it's puppy coat.
The mature coat colours for labs are as John says black, yellow, and chocolate. Flatcoats have two recognised colours, black or liver only, however the dog and bitch, when they mate do not let this worry them, and will happily produce yellow pups for us! The yellow in flatcoats is a throwback from it's earliest beginings in the 1800's!
Have you spoken to the breeder about this? They will (or should) know the line they are producing puppies from, better than anyone else, they may have seen this before.

Hi.
Have seen this loads of times in labs, i was told it was called "splashing" and was often the result of inappropriate colour matings, how true that is I don't know. Your dog is a pedigree and personally if she was a pet it would not concern me, however, you did buy her like this so you were aware of it when you had her. Enjoy her for who she is not what she looks like, even the best of pups change as they get older.
Dawn.

I agree with Dawn, the puppy is in good health and you should not worry about colour, I didn't when I had my "two tone" flatcoat, I just liked him for who he was. A healthy puppy is more important than a puppy with a "two tone" coat.

Thank you to those who replied to my message. My vet has suggested that the mother may have been mated with 2 different dogs ?? I am not a vet myself so I am not sure what to make of this suggestion. However I do love my puppy and her marks only make her more interesting.

Lucy.
I know some one that had a litter of Labs, out of 4 pups 2 were ok, (both black) one was yellow with splashing, the other black with splashing. I KNOW these pups were 100% Lab, no way were they anything else, the black bitch she kept went on to win 1cc and no end of best of breeds at open level. You do not have a cross-breed, I would stake anything on it!!
Dawn.

I have a GSD puppy who was one of the top two bitches in the litter and when I went to fetch her from the breeders the one that the breeder finally decided on keeping had white markings on her foot! This was the only way she managed to tell them apart in the beginning but apparently she has had this problem before and the chances are that the markings will hopefully go:) It's quite ironic really that I should come on to find this as it was only last night that I was talking to a friend of mine who works in a vets- she was talking about a colleague who has just bought a Doberman perfect for showing but it had marks too that would mean it can't go in a show ring- the marks on the dog in question have now gone:) So I'd give it more time before jumping to conclusions:) And if you love the pup anyway what's the difference:D :D :D Enjoy your new pup!

Love Stacey x x x

Ive seen splashing on labs also the bridle stripes they are called mismarks
must admit though I havent ever bred any of with these but have had white marks once in a litter on three pups and there was no doubt about their parentage and they were top quality,there was a famous champion dog in the line which they said produced the white marks.

Yes it is perfectly possible for a bitch to hold to two matings and the puppies have different sires. I had a border collie bitch, she was due in season, as my holiday came up. So I asked my neighbour to look after her and not to let her out with any other dogs if she came is season.
You can imagine I was not pleased to return from my holiday to find my in season bitch mated to a large black flatcoat! I went round to ask my neighbour how long she had been in season and really to find out if they were aware of it. "Oh yes", they said, "we knew she was in season. So we let her run out as we knew you wanted her to have pups" Well yes I did but pedigree pups. I then told them I'd take her to the vet to get the jab done, but they then informed me it was already too late as their pointer had mated her a couple of days beforehand!
Eventually the pups were born, and 5 of the 8 puppies were large and black like the flatcoat, the other three were marked like the pointer! The 3 were built along slender lines and had pointer characteristics, the other 5 were more solid, all black and looked like flatcoats!
Having said this, I still think you would find the pup you have is infact a pure bred lab. Even if you got a DNA test done I think you would find the pup is a lab.