It’s About the Pedigree and Program…Not the Color!
Jeff and Katherine Fuller 11.28.12
Black labs are smarter, yellow labs are hyper, chocolate labs are not intelligent…and on and on the debate goes. Even the animal world is not immune to stereotypes. Let my experience assure you that these stereotypes don’t hold water. I’ve been in the Labrador Retriever breeding world since 1998, and I can definitively say that your dog’s qualities will be determined by its pedigree and breeding program.
When one looks at the pedigree of a well-bred lab, the first thing that should stand out are the lineage and titles it will inherit. A puppy chock-full of past champions and dogs that have attained titles will inherit the same DNA that gave its predecessors the ability to attain such titles. Your dog stands to inherit the same fleetness of foot, the same stamina, the same great sense of smell, the same dedicated personality, etc., as his predecessors had. To say that a dog, merely by the color of its coat, will exhibit certain traits would be a genetic fallacy.
In Labrador Retrievers, the black is the dominant gene in the scheme of color. With that, all dogs of the breed will carry this color. In other words, any Labrador Retriever can produce black offspring, regardless of the color of his/her coat. Yellow and chocolate coat colors, along with their slight variations, have to be carried by the parents to have pups of those colors. These colors are “recessive” in the gene pool. An example of this would be breeding a yellow lab to a chocolate, where neither parent carried the other coat color gene. Their pups would be black, and all of the pups would carry the yellow and chocolate recessive gene.
The thought that a puppy would be destined to a certain personality trait or ability can be explained simply by using one of my dogs. My male Soggy Acres Desert Fox MH AKA “Rommel” is a black Labrador Retriever that carries both the yellow and chocolate recessives for coat color. I can breed Rommel to a female that carries the same genetic coat variations and have puppies of all three coat colors in one litter. With only one recessive gene being the difference in the pups DNA, there would be no chance of a major difference in the pups from this litter. Just as in hair color with humans, coat color is no indicator of things to come.
Ultimately the ability of a pup rests in what they were bred for. If a Labrador Retriever is bred for coat color only, whether black, yellow or chocolate, there could be a risk for you, the consumer. Clearly, attempting to pair animals to breed for color alone negates all of the truly important factors in creating a strong, healthy, intelligent litter. Looking at the pedigree and genetics of potential litters is the first step in finding the traits desired in your future champion.
This article was brought to you by Soggy Acres Retrievers.
Jeff Fuller, Host and Executive Producer of SportingDog Adventures, always loved dogs and hunting, but never expected to make a career out of it. Jeff followed his college career and time in the Army Reserve with a career in law enforcement, until a squad accident ended his career in 2005. Looking for a new path, Jeff began to expand his Labrador breeding program and incorporated Soggy Acres Retrievers. Appearances on local television shows inspired him to aim higher, and SportingDog Adventures was created to provide wholesome, family entertainment geared towards those with an interest in dogs and the outdoors. The show is now in its 4th season, with new episodes beginning each July on the Pursuit Channel, as well as several other networks including The Walk, Tuff TV, and Wild TV Canada. The show is also available year-round online at www.carbontv.com.
Katherine Fuller, wife of Jeff Fuller, came from a dog-loving family with a history of hunting that goes all the way back to her European roots. Still, she never expected to end up using her years of accounting experience and her marketing degree in support of a Labrador breeding program and a hunting show. In addition to her accounting and PR duties with Soggy Acres Retrievers kennel and SportingDog Adventures TV, Kate also appears on many of the episodes, and has also formed a marketing company, Brown Dog Communications, offering the outdoors industry media kits, press releases, web content, social media management, and more. Her contributions to OutdoorHub and other samples of her work can be found at www.browndogco.com. When she’s not writing or chasing after the dogs or the kids, she enjoys researching recipes and natural products, as well as organizing the family’s extensive photo collection.
