Hi, If I decided I wanted to breed my female chocolate lab with my dark red golden retriever, what color would the puppies be? Would they be chocolate? My Golden is almost the color of a Irish setter. Could they be black?
Hmmm, my concern is that if you're asking that question, then you're probably not in quite the right place for breeding just yet. It's not something that should ever be taken lightly and breeding for colour is never a good idea. To answer your specific question, it depends entirely on the genetics of the two dogs. Let's say you were breeding together two Labs. Every Labrador has two "visible" colour genes (one which dictates their coat colour and the other the colour of their nose/eye rims) and one "invisible" colour gene. If you look at the chart on this page, you can see there are six possible combinations for mating a yellow Lab with a chocolate Lab. The shade of the coat doesn't have anything to do with which of the base colours will come out. You could end up with a litter that are all black, a litter that are all chocolate or some other combination that can include all three colours. It depends on the two dogs' genetics. When you're mixing two breeds together, it's a whole lot less predictable. In goldens, I assume you normally only have yellow genes, although the odd black allele will pop up from time to time, throwing a black GR. But how that would demonstrate when combined with the Labrador genes is beyond my knowledge. I would guess that, since the Lab bitch is chocolate and therefore not carrying any black genes, the pups would likely be a mix of yellow and chocolate, but that's only a hunch. Here is a link to information about making the choice whether or not you should breed from your dog: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/breeding-from-your-labrador/ Just being a nice dog isn't good enough - you need to ensure that both your bitch and sire are fully health tested with acceptable scores for elbows and hips, and won't be passing on any testable genetic diseases to the puppies. This means doing a full panel of all the potential diseases that could affect either breed. Good luck with your decision.
I agree with everything @snowbunny said. But to answer your question, GR/Labs are either yellow or black. Most Guide Dogs (59%) are GR/Labs. Some turn out looking just like Labs, others have longer fur - more like GRs. My Gypsy and Twiglet were both GR/Labs. Gypsy - Twiglet - Here is GR/Lab puppy Waffle, the black GR/Labs don’t get the brown eyes, their eyes are a deep grey/brown colour -
I don't think that's the whole story. You can get chocolate GRxLabs. Here's a pic of some! They do need a chocolate sire or dam, though, and most likely the reason you don't see them in the GD programme is because there aren't too many of those
Just curious, why are most of your guide dogs Lab-GR crosses. I believe most from Oregon Dogs for the Blind are Yellow Labs, that they have bred from their own line, though the also have Goldens, and Lab GR crosses.
