I'd never heard of Silver labs when a friend of mine was asking about them - I googled and found this article http://www.silverlabs.com/controversy.htm anyone know if there are any silvers in the UK and what the views are here?
Re: Silver labs My goodness , 1200 dollars for a puppy Personally , I dont like the look of them and as far as I know ,our KC only recognise the three colours of yellow, black and chocolate . It does worry me when gene pools get intentionally " messed with " to produce a totally different colour that is right outside the box . I`ve never heard of them before Carole, but I guess its only time before they pop up here, if not here already .
Re: Silver labs You might look at this site... http://www.labradorcouncil.com/lrc-position.html They really are real...
Re: Silver labs That site link leads to the Labrador Retriever Council. If you look at the websites of the four Board members they are all breeders of 'silver Labradors'. Seems like a lobby group, not a proper breed club. As Karen says, a lot of the have a distinctly Weimeraner look about them, and not just the colour either. Pippa has an article on this: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/?p=3213
Re: Silver labs I find it interesting however, that in the Labrador historically Chessie's were known early crosses with the Labrador. http://retrieverman.net/2011/06/13/ash-chesapeake-bay-retrievers/ They are allowed the silver color but not labs.... i understand both sides of the debate, but not sure why it's such a big deal to some.
Re: Silver labs I read somewhere that most of the retriever breeds were intermingled in the very early days. I have mixed feelings about closed registries and breed standards. On the one hand I like the distinct characteristics and looks of the different breeds but on the other it seems to do the dogs a disservice at times with regards to their health. I also meet a lot of lovely mutts who I'd give houseroom too in a heartbeat
Re: Silver labs I love the way Charlie looks (I know show dogs aren't for everyone, but I love all sorts of showy characteristics about Charlie) - so I guess I must value the pedigree register. But I'm pretty relaxed about the concept really - a lovely dog is a lovely dog. I quite like the look of the silver labs! So long as they are healthy and there isn't any dodgy stuff going on in breeding from too small a pool or anything like that (but that's an inherent problem with any pedigree dog, I guess, it's just the degree of it).
Re: Silver labs Silver is really just a diluted shade of chocolate, just as charcoal labs are a diluted shade of black. There are mixed views all over the place about silver labs saying they are weimaraner cross labs, and that they will never be a registered Labrador colour. Personally, I think they look ok, but labs are only yellow, black and chocolate and should really stay like that in my opinion.