Hi, I was just curious to the possible color of the puppies my lab might have. She is full blooded and she’s a black lab. Her mother was full blooded and yellow, and her father was a full blooded black lab. We bred her with a full blooded silver lab. Both of his parents were also silver. So with a black lab and a silver lab, I was just curious to what color possibilities my lab may have. I’ve tried to research the genetic inheritance, but it just confuses me. A little help please?
Hi Ashley, welcome to the forum! Here's an article to help you figure out what coat colour combinations are possible with different matings. Labrador Coat Color Inheritance. If you scroll down you'll find grids with different possibilities for each combination of coat. I hope this helps!
I’ve read that over and over, and it doesn’t really touch silver labs much. I still don’t understand.
Hi Ashley, the silver lab coat color explanations are in our Silver Labs article. It is possible for a black lab to carry the genes for yellow or brown and pass them on to their puppies. Whether or not those genes will be expressed depends on the genetic make up of the dog she is mated to. The silver gene is different in that it isnt a color in its own right, it simply dilutes the existing colors of the affected dogs. So a dog that would otherwise have been brown become silver, a dog that would otherwise have been black becomes charcoal and a dog that would otherwise have been yellow becomes champagne. Because silver is recessive you will not get any silver puppies (or charcoal etc) unless your dog also carries a silver gene.