Only yellow, black and chocolate? !

Hi all, been posting all kinds of questions for the masses and Thanks for the replies!

Another question . Labs are yellow ,black and chocolate correct ? I know that the yellow can range from white to brown .

However my sister seeing and hearing stories of Jax now wants a lab for herself and her family .

She began searching online breeders in her area . She came across several listing of "silver labs" . These labs are silver and look more weimaraner than lab. They also are a lot more expensive than a lab with papers and a good bloodline .

As a younger guy before the Internet was what it is now I got took by a breeder for a "red lab" . I was young but I visited the place saw the parents on site and bought this "red lab" for a premium to have the vet tell me they didn't believe it was a lab etc. Long story short I had been scammed , turns out the papers I had bought well not worth the detail but the breeder cared more about money than dogs and later on it would come out that yes I saw 2 labs on the property but the pups weren't what they were claimed to be .

So now this silver lab thing, is this legit ? A Google search shows the dogs but I'm not so sure ,especially at the price point ? Any knowledge in this is appreciated . My sis loves these "silver labs" just not sure if they are legit or not

 

Ooh, now that is an interesting question. Yes there are three colours, yellow, chocolate and black. You also have breeders that refer to their pups as white, red or fox red but these are just shades of yellow and are registered as yellow.

Silvers are an interesting discussion and the cause of much argument. Some claim that the colour is due to a gene mutation which brings a dilute colour of the black, chocolate or yellow. Others claim that the silver/dilute colouring is due to the 'undisclosed' introduction via a mating between a Lab and something like a Weimaraner. What ever the reason the dogs are registered as black, yellow or chocolate as silver is not officially recognised. Should they cost any more than a normal colour, in my opinion no, they are a Lab with a dilute colour gene at best, but then some breeders will trade on the rarity value.

 

There is no such thing as silver labradors. I dont believe that a gene can ,,sit,, tight for so many years and then appear in only one particular line. I think that this is a breeding gone bad for a breeder who didnt know how to sell the pups so invented the new color, and now everyone sells it for big money. Genetics showed that the labradors dont carry the dilute gene. When the breed was created, only three colors were written in the standard, because back then, there werent any silvers.

 

The breeder with that "red lab" sold me that song and dance about genes etc. Come to find out it was gah it's been years so it's kind of fuzzy , come to find out it was some kind of hound dog bred with a lab for a couple ge rations to basically get a dog that almost looked like a lab , what through up red flags as the pup got older the flat spot or "square head" was not there it had a very round head with no flat spot and shorter hair almost the same feel as a weiner dog .

I haft to agree with Nade, I have no knowledge on this but a silver lab looks like a mix , look at its face vs a pure bred lab .

 

Kind of makes me angry . In my sisters area there are labs akc registered average price is 5-6 hundred there are some higher and some lower average is 5-6 though .

The silvers WITH papers are 1k. I thought it fishy at best with my past experience, if this is a can of worms my apologies.

 

AKC doesnt really care about the breed, not only labs, about every other breed. They are interested in the money. They register the silvers under chocolate, which is kind of stupid, silver is nowhere near a chocolate color. This is not the same as yellow, because the yellow color has variations, and those variations(from snow white to fox red) are mentioned in every breed standard( AKC, FCI, UK ect..). I am pretty sure the people who originally wrote the standard were smarter than most of the breeders today, because then they actually used the dogs for real work and not for profit. That is why today we have sooo many different dogs that are called under the same breed. That is why we have puppy mills. Those puppy mills are usually encouraged by the big kennel clubs who would sign everything if you pay them.

 

At this point, I don't believe we can be certain that the dilute gene has not been present in labs all along. As gene pools shrink, more recessive alleles come to light on a regular basis.
Lots of thoughts in this extensive article, http://www.thelabradorsite.com/silver-labradors/
but its an interesting topic for sure

 

Here is an article you might find interesting:

http://www.thelabradorsite.com/silver-labradors/

 

Cost is an interesting one isnt it. How much is a dog worth? How much should a breeder charge? I don't know how people figure this out, but in most fields of interest cost is driven largely by demand.

 

There are actually dilutes for every colour, so you can get charcoal which is dilute black, and champagne, which is dilute yellow.

 

I think it is an interesting and valid topic, especially in the light of the latest understanding of the problems of isolating breeds from one another. I think it is helpful to ask ourselves if it really matters if the purity of any given breed is 'tainted' by another breed (if that is what has happened here and that is by no means clear)

Incidentally, the UK KC does not recognise silvers, that is an AKC thing and one that is causing the AKC quite a bit of grief!

We regularly get fans posting silvers up on our facebook page, and most look just like any other lab - only silver. The houndy looking ones get all the publicity

I think the answer to that is yes. There a now many, many silver labs registered in the USA and there is no going back, because genetically it would be impossible to remove the gene. Too many labs now carry it. From a show point of view, you cannot exhibit a silver in the show ring, but silver labs are competing successfully in hunt tests and I suspect its only a matter of time before the powers that be cave and allow them to be shown

 

Would a DNA test be able to prove whether it was a mix?

 

I think the AKC have gone down that route and found no evidence of foul play, which is why they are now registering these dogs. But I could be wrong

 

Thanks

 

A colour gene, even if recessive, is very hard to keep hidden for a long time as its effects are often pervasive and visible. The effects of the dilute gene are straightforward, easy to spot and are equal in 'power' to the effects of the yellow gene - you only need two doses and you get the effect over the whole dog. I think the dilute gene is a pretty recent addition.

I agree that it's only a matter of time before they can be shown in some countries. I expect that Australia will be one of the last though as you just don't see Silver/dilute Labs here and the Labrador Clubs are dead against them. But if someone breeds them people will buy... Personally it does not bother me if new colours are introduced. It's other domestic species new colours are produced deliberately and generate a lot of positive interest (poultry, horses....maybe cats).

 

I do think it's important to isolate a breed or make sure some blood lines are pure and that they stay pure .

Now if we can play around with breeding a little bit and possibly get some of the bad traits of labs out I'm all for that ,just list it in the blood line . Like say you mix a lab with xxx dog and that helps the labs joints for instance and you get a lab but with better joints I'm all for that .

As long as these things are done in the open and people aren't allowed to sell mixed breeds at pure bred prices then by all means .

As far as value goes both Jax and trouble both have papers or trouble had papers . I didn't pay near what average price is for these dogs , troubles breeder house got hit by a tornado and they had no place to keep the dogs so I got him for 125 bucks .

Jaxs breeder was a Navy guy when I explained my old job he wanted to give me Jax but we settled on some memorabilia from the teams and a case of beer . In hindsight though no matter the cost when my daughter saw Jax that breeder could of made off like a bandit and he would of still had Jax. .

 

No LIKE smiley for the bold part!!! very well said!!! That is why breeders are worried. And the gene has not been proved in other lines. People started testing for dilute gene and the line was discovered. If I remember it came from only two stud dogs, who are not as old as the breed, because if they were, they would have been a real colour.

Exactly, they are dilute, they are not colour variation. And they can be produced if a silver mix is breed to the pure bred dog.

Have you seen how the dilute color alopecija looks like? It has been confirmed that only the silvers mix dog have it and it cant be cured....I would not like my puppies to suffer like this, especially if the puppy goes to a home with children. But, the people who breed then, dont really care about anything else except their pocket.

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=ffbb1834a6a17b41f4b6e7e93419513a&oe=57DC366D

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=6837f6159f97e02f248f06544c705eb4&oe=57D8198C

The links are photos of how the alopecia looks like, I lef them just links on purpose. If the admin thinks they would be photos, just put them in the Image thing.

 

Why?

 

I think it is nice if the price of a dog should reflect the care that has gone into it, so for example, if dog is health tested to the max then the price will reflect that.

But ultimately it is entirely up to the owner of the dog how much they sell puppies for, and entirely up to those buying puppies as to whether they are prepared to pay for them. I don't really see the value in price fixing at all, or in trying to put a value on pure or not pure.

 

Fortunately this kind of alopecia is rare in silver labs, though it is a problem in weims. Lots more info on dilutes here http://www.doggenetics.co.uk/dilutes.html