http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2250669/I-think-belong-somebody-Lucy-Labradors-Christmas-surprise-giving-birth-TWELVE-black-puppies.html

So they acknowledge that they were ignorant that an 18 month old dog could sire a litter and have found out about the expense and hard work it has been.

It does make you wonder though how stupid people can be and the consequences associated to it.

I assume they didnt know she was in season either......

I think they did just didn't think an 18 month dog would be able to mate successfully resulting in puppies.

she looks like a plain lab to me not a GR, pups are gorgeous but for them to be a pretty good size she must have been huge! its like teenage daughter left alone upstairs with her BF and parents think they are just talking. stupidity

I assume they mean yellow Lab, not Golden. How a dog can be carrying 12 puppies and not look pregnant to any casual glance is beyond me! At least they say how much hard work it's been!

"We thought Jack was too young to do anything"

Love it! Wonder if that's what the parents of 13 year old boys say when they discover their son has sired a child?!!

My OH admits that he first played 'hide the sausage' at 11!!!!

It's best for parents (and dog owners) to never assume, that their babies are not capable.

I'm not sure whether to reply with ... :-D or :-O !!!

Interesting they are all black - a German Shepherd wouldn't be my first guess as the sire unless it was a solid black GSD.
Wondering if there's more to this story than we know.

I didn't comment on the Golden Labrador comment as that is quite insignificant to the rest of the story :-)

MT why thoughts about the colour of the pups but as we don't know the true story perhaps the labs black gene may have been the reason.

> MT why thoughts about the colour of the pups but as we don't know the true story perhaps the labs black gene may have been the reason.

That's why I wondered - there's no shortage of GSD x Labs out there and the majority are some kind of GSD-ish colour, not solid black. The genes on the Agouti locus (as in most GSDs) tend to override most others.

my son's six month old bitch parents were mother yellow lab x father black/tan  GSD -she is black with very small piece of white on her chest

Interesting they are all black - a German Shepherd wouldn't be my first guess as the sire unless it was a solid black GSD.

Wouldn't it be much the same as the Golden x Malis (where 5 of 9 were black), or is the GSD colour that different from BSD? There was a second litter that were all black (no idea whose they were, was told about it at Crufts in something like 2004).

I knew of a black labrador x GSD litter where there was a range of colours in the litter. Only one of the 10 was solid black - the others all had varying amounts of tan with white points (toes, chest, tail tip etc).

Where there is a possibility of various colours, it's of course pot luck as to what you get in a litter -it could be several different ones or just one.

Just as an aside, in Sweden, Labrador x GSD is the most common dog used as guide dogs, has been for many, many years.

It depends what colours the parents carry really - for example if you mate a yellow Labrador that doesn't carry the chocolate gene to a chocolate Labrador that doesn't carry the yellow gene, every single puppy will be black.

Yellow tends to stop certain patterns from being expressed e.g. merle, so it could be the same with agouti - anyone know?

> Yellow tends to stop certain patterns from being expressed e.g. merle, so it could be the same with agouti - anyone know?

Yes, Yellow (ee) does stop Merle from being expressed but in Labradors (and also in this case now I think about it!) it's the Dominant Black gene (K) at work.

Even Yellow Labradors have the K gene, but the presence of ee prevents all black pigment from being produced. So a yellow Lab is KK ee

When crossed to a black and tan GSD  - kk a(t) a(t) EE the result is Kk -a(t) Ee. the dominant black overrides everything else and as the GSD didn't carry e (some would - "white" GSDs for instance) then they would be all black.

Not all breeds have the Dominant Black gene but the majority do. It tends to be herding breeds like GSDs and BCs that have recessive black aa although oddly enough Belgian Shepherds are mainly KK, with rare occurrence of aa.

The cases where tan-point Labs have occurred is when the parents each only had one K gene - Kk and the absence of the K gene allowed the tan points (previously totally hidden by the prevalence of the K gene) to show through in one or two pups. I have seen a pure-bred tan-pointed Weimaraner and it's the same genetic quirk.