
Forget what you’ve read about “rare” colors in the Labrador Retriever (such as silver, charcoal, or white). There are three recognized colors: Black, Chocolate, and Yellow. The rest are marketing ploys or breeder-ignorance on display.
Of the three main Labrador colors, chocolate is the least common, and that’s because of how its genetics work. In the simplest of explanations, two genes decide whether a Lab will be chocolate. Call them “Big B” and “little b.” In genetics, we’ll see this written as BB, Bb, or bb.
“Big B” is the dominant gene and it makes black Labs. “Little b” is recessive and is responsible for the chocolate color. If a puppy gets even one “Big B,” he or she will be black—so BB or Bb both result in a black Lab (though Bb Labs can pass on the chocolate gene to their puppies). Only when a puppy gets two “little b” genes (so, bb) does s/he turn out to be chocolate. That means both parents must carry and pass along the “little b” gene for a chocolate puppy to be born.
But there’s a twist: the E gene (think “E” for expression). This gene decides if the color from the B genes will actually show up in the puppy’s coat. If a puppy gets two “little e” genes (ee), s/he will be yellow, no matter what B genes it has. So, even if a puppy is bb, if it’s also ee, he or she will be yellow, not chocolate.
Bottom line: to get a chocolate Lab, a puppy needs two “little b” genes (bb) and at least one “big E” gene (so either EE or Ee) for the chocolate color to show up. Because both parents have to carry and pass on the “little b” gene, chocolate Labs are less common than black or yellow ones.
Got that?
Until 1892, all Labs were presumed to be black (we say ‘presumed’ because we have to think that not everyone documented a litter), but the Duke of Buccleuch did, and when his bitch whelped two liver colored puppies, he recorded it. To our knowledge, this was the earliest clear documentation of the chocolate color in the breed (it was called ‘liver’ at the time). The Buccleuch litter established that the chocolate color existed in the breed, but black remained the overwhelmingly preferred and dominant color among breeders and sportsmen. In the UK, the first real increase in the number of chocolate Labs wasn’t seen until the 1930s, but they were still uncommon. After WWII, chocolate Labs began to attract more attention, but they didn’t gain real traction in the UK until the 1960s.
At this point, we pivot to America and ask you to read Part II where we introduce you to a dog named Kennoway’s Fudge.
Photo by Rachel Alexis on Unsplash