The UK KC says that Affenpinschers have to be black where as in the States the AKC accepts a lot more colours. In fact their breed standard says "Color is not a major consideration."

Although personally I much prefer the black I think that there is an argument for widening the gene pool by permitting other colours.

J

Ok say Mum is the black lab and Dad is the choc. Pups all get 2 genes, one from each parent. To have choc pups in the first place, mum must carry the recessive choc gene alongside her dominant black gene which makes her black.

Wherever there is a dominant black gene present in a pup, the pup will be black. So even though dad gives his recessive choc gene to his pups, they will only be chocolate if they happen to get mums recessive gene too, rather than the dominant black.

Here this site will explain it better than I can! I'd never make a teacher!

http://www.lockeonlabradors.com/coat_color.htm

Thanks for the link Random! It's a bit of a brain twister isn't it, but I have a clearer picture now, thanks for taking the time to explain.......I've learnt something new......although I couldn't explain it to some else .

It's an interesting subject (if I can't get my head round it).
So having a pup with the 2 recessive genes, so is a choclate, how come that makes a more "difficult" dog?

As someone else mentioned, once upon a time a recessive chocolate gene cropped up. Back then, chocolates were culled (yellows too, come to think of it). Then it eventually grew in popularity with pet owners. Producing chocolate coloured pups involved a fair amount of line breeding and I dare say inbreeding, too. It would have been pet dog owners and not working dog owners who bred for the chocolate gene, so the 'tradition' kind of carried on. As a result, very few chocolate Labradors have any kind of working ancestry in them.

Depends. If you put two pet bred chocolates together with zero regard to pedigrees, health, temperament, etc., sure they could be less than desirable in terms of temperament. But that goes for any random breeding of any breed with no thought behind it. On the other hand, put two well bred, sable, chocolates together and it won't be any different to any kind of other Lab breeding.

In Labs? well, that is a loaded question. Dogs can carry different colours in their genes. My Lab, for example, is dominant black -- he does NOT carry yellow or chocolate in his genes, so regardless of what colour bitch he was mated to (hypothetical - he lost his furry plums!) the resulting pups would always be black.

So, in a yellow to black mating, assuming that the black and yellow dog carried no other colours, all pups born would be black but carrying yellow.

A yellow bred to a chocolate (neither carrying any other colours) would result in black puppies that carry chocolate and yellow. Confusing, huh?

A few of the gamekeepers up here have working labs - black and a few yellow, but they seem to scoff at the chocolates. From selectively breeding black and yellow for work, has the chocolate lab lost most of its working ability?

"Confusing?"

Yep!
I had to read that a couple of times....that's some serious brain gymnastics!

The chocolate was never really worked to begin with (because of the bias towards blacks), but you could say that, yes. I don't believe there has ever been a chocolate field trial champion in this country.

I would never buy a pup from a breeder who bred purely for colour.

In GSDs there seems to be a growing trend (within certain circles) of breeding very diluted looking colours - I have no idea what *colour* you would call some of them. If the breeder first looks at health, temperament and conformation and THEN at colour, I don't mind, but prefer the standard black/gold GSD myself. I don't think there is any excuse for breeding for colour before any other consideration.

In collies there are all manner of different colour, and variations of. My personal preference is black/white or tricoloured. I do like a good red/white too - and there are some cracking red/white working dogs. As above, if a breeder is breeding for colour before health, temperament, working ability and conformation, then I don't agree with it.

Basically to try and explain it simply as i'm not a good teacher really, I know what I mean.

Imagine the genes like a chain, everything that goes into making a dog, colour, temp, sex, drive (sex and drive I mean, not sex drive! )e.t.c.

Now labs are not my breed so I don't know the history of chocs really but imagine the gene that makes them a bit more 'difficult' so to speak, maybe it is a slight chemical imbalance, some people think this is linked in the chain of genes directly to the chocolate gene, so wherever the choc gene goes, this 'naughty' gene often follows. I have heard in other breeds too, like newfs esp that the chocs are also little bu$$ers, so there is something that is connected to the choc gene but not the black, that when the 2 choc genes are paired, results in this behvaiour coming out in the dog.

The gene itself does not effect behaviour. The chocolate gene is a colour, just like any other. Saying that dogs that are chocolate or carry the chocolate gene are somehow unbalanced is kind of like saying that blonds are dumb. Quality of the breeding shapes the temperament of the dog, not the colour.