As the weather is so warm here at the moment we decided to take Juno to our local lake this afternoon so she could have a swim. Oh what fun she had swimming for her Kong airball to begin with and then switching to retrieving her proper 1lb dummy. She amazed me with the retrieves on the dummy as we have only used it once before in the garden and wasn't very interested in but she loved a water retrieve with it, and even delivered the dummy to my hand (I knew she knew that was what she was supposed to do ). She also made a new friend of a Golden Retreiver cross boy who was completely black . He wanted to play and steal Juno's toys and even her leash but they got on well and Juno was much better behaved
This thread prompted me to do a little look into flat coat retrievers, because they're so similar looking to goldies. It seems there's quite a lot of debate in the GR world as to whether a GR can be black - which is different to a flattie, obviously. But, one thing I found out is that GRs are actually genetically black, but their genes suppress the development of the black pigment, so they end up golden. How cool Anyhow, thought I'd share. Sounds like you all had a blast
That's interesting, his owner said he was a GR cross. I think the cross must have been a Lab as he looked like a Lab but with a GR coat, albeit black.
This is exactly the same as with yellow Labradors They are genetically black, with two copies of a recessive gene that prevents the black pigment from being expressed in fur (still allows it in skin). The exception would be a yellow Labrador with two chocolate genes - such a dog has no black genes and therefore will have pink skin (pink eye rims, pink lips, pink/brown nose and pink/brown paw pads) instead of black - like a chocolate Labrador. This is a non-standard version of yellow that's not desired in the show ring (but that doesn't matter in any other way). A black GR/Lab cross would've had one parent who was a black Labrador (ie black fur) that had either no copies of the yellow gene or only one copy. I'm assuming this dog had long fur like a GR too, just reading between your lines The expression of the long fur is interesting as it's due to a recessive gene. If the dog was long furred, then both parents must've had a copy of the gene for it, since it takes two parents to contribute two recessive genes to produced the effect - that means that if there was a Lab parent it was not pure bred as Labradors should not carry a long hair gene. That's the theory anyhow! I've seen a similar dog - long haired black GR cross and he (Cooper was his name) was a great looking dog.
Glad Juno had a nice water play and made a new friend....I've been under the impression my friend's yellow GR was a GR!We were out with 2 other GR's last week and I commented how different her face was to the other 2 and she said that's because she's a Flattie!I was surprised as I have only known black Flatties! X
Apparently, from what I read yesterday, you can get black, liver or yellow flatties, but the yellow ones aren't recognised and it's recommended (although obviously not dictated) they're not registered or bred from!
Well I didn't know that Flatties carried yellow and chocolate genes. That's the trouble with recessive genes - in one dose they can't be seen from the outside and so they can pop up when you don't want them. Flattie breeders should get their dogs tested for colour genes and only breed dogs carrying two black genes (therefore no chocolate) and no yellow genes. Testing or test mating is the only way of getting rid of recessive genes. Or they could change the breed standard to allow choc and yellow Flatties.
I know several chocolate Flats who compete as they are recognized by the DRC. I also know one golden flatcoat, very beautiful and healthy, but because the yellow colour isn't recognized they cannot compete with him. Silly really, as he's gorgeous and as far as I can see it's just fashion dictating the colour wishes!
