Labrador Retriever Color Genetics

Have you ever wondered how a yellow and a chocolate lab can produce all black puppies? Or how from the crossing of a yellow lab with a black lab, you can get chocolate and black puppies but no yellows?

Labrador color genetics is a helpful tool that allows us to predict the color that the puppies will have in a cross between two purebred Labradors. In order to predict the color distribution of the colors in a litter, it is important to know the coat color genetics of that the parents carry and to exclude crosses that, for genetic reasons, fall outside the desired standard and can cause health problems.

In the Labrador Retriever breed there are only three accepted colors (black, yellow and chocolate) and 9 different genotypes that form the genetic basis of the coat color of the breed.

To understand coat color probabilities, it is first necessary to define two concepts:

The phenotype is the visible manifestation of the genotype, it is the visible color of hair that the dog has (phenotype = hair color).

The genotype refers to the genes carried by the dog in question, whether or not they are visible to the eye.

In this way, we can speak of a dog that is pure black, black carrier of yellow, black carrier of chocolate, pure yellow, yellow carrier of chocolate, pure chocolate or chocolate carrier of yellow, etc.

This helps the breeder determine the possibilities of litters, depending on the color crossings that we do.

In the graphs below, we present the possibilities according to the following color legend:

• EEBB = Pure black

• EEBb = Black carrier of chocolate

• EeBB = Black carrier of yellow

• EeBb = Black carrier of yellow and chocolate

• eeBB = Pure yellow

• eeBb = Yellow carrier of chocolate

• eebb = Yellow with chocolate pigmentation ~ missing black pigmentation (commonly called Dudley, undesired)

• EEbb = Pure chocolate

• Eebb = Chocolate carrier of yellow

Click on the arrows to navigate all the graphs.

The color yellow and health

It is necessary to take into account the color genetics during the breeding to avoid producing depigmented yellow puppies, that is, without black pigmentation, with very light eye color and red nose and lips without any pigmentation. These dogs are commonly called Dudley. They are accepted but not desired and most breeders avoid having them due to both conformation considerations and health concerns.