I see, thanks!

I think it was labradork who said that when chocolate became popluar there was a fair amount of line/inbreeding to achieve choc colour? I imagine this may also contribute to a dog's temperament?

Can of worms methinks!

Now I didn't say ALL chocolates did I. I was careful NOT to say that. The fact is, if it doesn't affect blacks or yellows AT ALL then it IS connected to the colour gene.

I personally have never heard it in labs, but in newfs yes and rage syndrome in cockers.

What doesn't effect blacks or yellows? poor temperaments? I have met my fair share of scatty blacks and yellows. In fact, I would say that I have met more scatty yellows then I have chocolates.

Yep. You are treading on thin ice when you breed for colour over temperament. It is all very well breeding for a dog with beautiful aesthetic features, but if the temperament is shoddy this will reflect in the pups.

Look I wasn't even the one who said chocs often had a worse temp than the others and as I said, I have never even heard of it in labs before today. Going from the many labs I have met, the chocs have seemed in general to be the calmest to me with least drive, the blacks with the most, the yellows somewhere between, but all are different. I am just trying to explain to another memeber who is new to genetics how poor temp and colour MAY be connected in SOME dogs of SOME breeds. I have heard a LOT of newf owners say it is true for brown newfs and most know about rage in cockers which is usually colour specific too. I'm not wanting a debate about it.

Sorry! I didn't mean to start an argument. It was a comment made to me a while back by a lady I know who said about choccie labs being a bit iffy sometimes. I just wanted to understand more (or even just a bit as I have no clue about genetics) and I thank everyone who has helped make it all a bit clearer!

Yes, but you suggested earlier that temperament problems were somehow directly linked to colour genes. Colour genes are just that - colour. They code for colour and nothing more. They do not influence the temperament of the animal, bad breeding does.

What arguement? last time I checked, forums were for debating.

Ok and as I also stated, i'm not the best at explaining things so as other people can understand.

This is the best I can find online for what what I was trying to say in a more simple manner:

"The existence of significant behavioural differences between the different colour morphs of the breed is interesting in the light of Hemmer’s view that coat colour in domestic animals is often closely associated with temperament. This theory was based on the fact that the pigment melanin shares a common biochemical synthesis pathway with the catecholamine group of neurotransmitters. Because red Cockers have different pedigrees to particolours, it might be a genetic (polygenic) trait associated with lines more than colours. There is to be a follow-up research on the study of pedigrees of a subset of aggressive and non-aggressive dogs."

http://www.dogstuff.info/cocker_rage_syndrome.html

This appears to back up what I was saying.