Silver Lab?

Well, at this point, I wouldn't be too surprised if silver popped up. Get one chocolate dog from breeder X and another from Y when X and Y really share ancestry at some point but were only carriers of a recessive gene.

How it got there in the first place is a separate issue, and how it became common is another separate from an individual breeding.

Don't forget, we have Labs that point, and often look a little like pointers... I'm surprised brown ticked ones don't show up more regularly.

IMO, from everything I've read...a silver Lab is not a "true" Lab. I highly doubt it is just a random mutation that cropped up.

And I know it shouldn't factor in to deciding whether or not the color is a legitimate color, but I think every single breeder I've seen breeding "silver" Labs is a breeder I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Well a lot of retrievers also point...that doesn't mean they were bred with a Pointer...many retrievers were and are used as all-purpose dogs who flush and/or point to varying degrees in actual hunting situations so that tendency wouldn't have been bred out per se. Heck FCRs and Curlys can run spaniel hunt tests in AKC which is a flush and point and retrieve test. Doesn't make them spaniels.

On the other hand...sometimes what happens in the back kennel stays in the back kennel...and it's not that hard for the wrong dog to be written on the registration, either intentionally or accidentally.

I've seen a few very nicely typed silvers and charcoals in this area. It's just an unaccepted color IMO - which if by cross breed or random event is here to stay. There was a time when chocolate was a highly frowned upon color - even today some tones of chocolate and yellow are considered truer than others. *shrugs*

I guess one can question if they are or are not "true Labs" either way (if it really was a random mutation or if outcrossing introduced it). How far off from an outcrossing does it take for the resulting dogs to once again be considered purebreds? Can you look at the bobtail Boxers and say that they aren't purebred Boxers?

People get very bent out of shape about having "true" and "pure" lines in the purebreds but the truth is, that is a very modern way of thinking about breeding. Historically breeds were almost never as "pure: as they are kept today. Some breeds considered separate breeds now were in the past just variants of one type of dog. Even today, if a certain dogs are considered separate breeds or varieties of the same breed can differ depending on the country or registry involved. And even when breeds were becoming more standardized, outcrossing was done when people needed to add a certain trait (structure or temperament) that wasn't easily found in the available population of the breed. In modern times, there has been outcrossing done in secret in various breeds and probably more than anyone really knows.

Not saying I support or don't support the breeding of Silver Labs. Or that they are or aren't a naturally occurring mutation. Just food for thought

I don't think there is any pointing in a Spaniel Trial. Last I checked, they were docking points for soft flushes, ie slowing, or pausing before flushing.

Retrievers in the field flush, so even if they came to point naturally, its not to their working standard to point... and yet a lot of people are breeding them like the out of standard dilutes.

In my whippet research project I found that NON whippet lines where introduced in the 80s!! That dog was struck from the registry but is progeny were left. I agree the idea of 'pure' is a strange and weird one. Its only been really the last 50 years or so where its become accepted that a breed is 'pure'.

a behavior is completely different from a physical characteristic health problems. the world is full of dogs that don't act or function according to the "working standard" like retreivers doing PP, herding, bomb/drug detection or seeing eye. it doesn't make them not retrievers because they do an off job.
another good example is cur dogs. the originals in britain had to hunt silent for their & their owner's safety. in colonial america the need continued. post civil war the open mouth sports that had always occurred in the breed became the preferred version east of the mississippi until now it is virtually impossible to find a silent Mt cur. mostly due to hogs, silent hunters stayed the style of choice.
how dogs act & work is constantly changing w/o changing what the breed is at it's root.
i think the root issue is dishonesty about how the dilute came into the breed & the associated health issues of the color.

Very interesting! And that was just one time when people found out about it. No doubt it's gone on many more times, in many more breeds without notice.

closed studbooks/gene pools & breeds are an invention of the late 19th century. i think maybe the cattle registries have it right. you record your crosses & keep grading up until you reach a certain purity to become registered as pure (usually 7/8).

The question then becomes what makes a breed a breed? How much flatcoat, weim, GSP blood can you add in, and what is the point of it? IMO, if we are going to outcross there should be a clear goal that benefits the breed somehow--improves temperament, health, or working ability--and who makes those decisions?

My issue with "silver labs" is not the pureness of the dogs, but the purpose for breeding them, which seems to be to produce a different color. That doesn't benefit the breed.

As for the colour popping up, it wouldn't be hard. A silver (or similar dilute) would have two copies of a recessive gene. So bred to a non-silver (non-dilute) the puppies would most likely have 1 copy recessive, 1 copy dominant (non-dilute). So the silver (dilute) gene could then be passed on recessively for several generations, assuming the carriers were not bred to another carrier. Breed two carriers together you will have 25% non-dilute, 50% carriers, 25% dilute. So if a breeder has one dog who produces a dilute it is clear that somewhere in there a carrier recessive gene has been passed on. If that breeder rebreeds that dog, or breeds a related dog, that gene might show up again (particularly if the breeding is done to the now-known carrier). The only way to weed out the carriers would be to DNA test for the dilute gene, or to remove any breeding pairs who produce a dilute puppy (both sire and dam). But because you wouldn't normally get that dilute who would remove a top breeding dog because of a recessive colour gene? It's pretty complicated really.

I've seen these kind of debates in horses. For example in Arabians there is SCIDS, which in it's active form is fatal. However carriers have no problems at all. Ideally all carriers should be removed from the breeding pool, but because it is so widespread in the breed (though not truly common) it is difficult to persuade people to weed it out. In fact there are concerns that some very important breeding lines might be wiped out if it were removed (fallacy in my opinion...). The theory is that as long as you never cross two carriers, it doesn't matter. There is a DNA test available now, but before you only found out about the positive status of a mare/stallion when a foal dropped dead of SCIDS (about 24 hours after birth).

Even more serious defects like HYPP (which is a dominant gene which has symptoms in both full (HH) and partial (Hh) presence). People still risk breeding Hh horses because they like the type, and they can still produce 50% clear foals when bred to a clear partner... At least Hh x Hh breedings tend to be frowned upon... mostly... as are HH breedings... Doesn't stop people though.

The majority of these breeders that have these dogs are breeders of "pet bred" labs though--not really bred for a purpose such as hunting or any sort of competition. If the color is just randomly popping up I would question where the breeder got the dogs in question, why they were bred, etc.

The AQHA finally decided to require that all foals with Impressive blood be tested, and the HYPP P/P horses are not eligible for registration. Honestly I don't know why anyone would risk a foal being positive for HYPP. My cousins horse had it and there is no breeding worth that result IMO.

Well if the color is so frowned on, I can't imagine any reputable breeders making it known if it popped up in their lines. So it could have been lurking for some time. Not arguing for either "side", but I could see it happening easily.

Wasn't one of the first kennels to knowingly have a silver Lab also a breeder of Weims? Or am I thinking of something else?

There are other off colors in labs that pop up though-black and tan, mosaic, etc, that are not kept super secret from what I know. It's pretty commonly known that they exist and can pop up. The issue with silver is not that it's silver, but that it was something introduced by kennels that also kept weims at the same time and therefore likely mixes being claimed as "rare" purebreds, and now (even if they are now 99.99% lab) are being bred pretty much exclusively by BYB (more of which the breed does NOT need) to make $$$ off of a "rare" lab color.

I was working the other day and this guy had this GSP-y solid chocolate puppy..with a pointer sized docked tail. He was talking to someone about the puppy, and the conversation was fading in and out. I do believe the dog was lab/gsp, and he said he had it AKC registered as a purebred lab and 'if anyone asks I'll tell them the tail got shut in the door'. It was just an odd conversation..but it makes you think.

You know and even people trying to be legit, as in the case of mismarked dogs (like labs with tan points), 'accidents' can happen. Multi-fathered litters aren't all that uncommon and very possible. I've heard of dogs mating through chain link...if they didn't notice the neighbor's rottie slipped over...yknow? Unless the puppies are proved matched to the stud by DNA markers but I don't see any kind of proof like that..

I have met ONE Silver Lab who actually looked like it could be a purebred. I've met dozens who are very obviously Weim mixes... one was just a giant Weim. All have very strange coats, nothing like a Lab coat. They feel like a Lab who was recently shaved. My friend paid $2000 for their "rare silver Lab". She looked it as a puppy, but grew up to be a looong, low, derpy mutt with a dramatically high rear end, curly tail and extreme human/dog aggression. She looks nothing like a PB Lab. Maybe a Lab x Weim x Basset? Idek!

We got a lot of "silver Labs" at the pet hotel, with horrible confo and the same weird coats. We would joke about the "rare, magical silverlabs!" having "medicinal saliva" and "pooping rainbows" and being made of "unicorn tears and the silver lining of clouds". LOL because their owners were ADAMANT that these were pure, elite silver Labs. I'd always ask, aww is he a Weimaraner Lab mix? And they'd be so offended.

In summary, I think that "Silver Labs" do exist, probably due to Weim being mixed in... even if it was many generations ago. The problem is that reputable breeders NEVER breed for that coloring, so you aren't going to get a quality silver Lab ever. The breeders that do breed for it make tons of money off of scamming people with their unhealthy, inbred and/or mixed bred puppies.