THE TRUTH ABOUT SILVERS (A common sense approach) - by Linda Heeg

In my opinion...

I had come across the silver and the charcoal silver color 10 plus years ago, and it was obvious to me that this color had been around before.  I thought and still do, that the colors are beautiful and very unique.  So I started searching for information about them.  I have surfed and read and have found information pertaining to the silver color that has satisfied my curiosity.  There is still some controversy and I believe always will be. 

What I found was very interesting.

The truth about it is the labrador retriever's ancestors came in a variety of shapes, sizes and color combinations due to the fact that in the late 1800s, early 1900s, breeders were breeding MANY different breeds into their lab gene pools.  Whippets, Norweign Elkhounds, Pointers, Newfoundlands...to name a few.  Breeders were looking to improve their lines with certain traits from these cross breedings.  For example, the labrador (St. John's dog) at that time was used for water rescue in the cold waters of Newfoundland.  Their labs had a very thin belly fur.  So they brought in a Norweign Elkhound which had thick belly fur and crossed this with their dogs in an effort to bring about thicker belly fur in their future offspring.

In keeping with this example of the Elkhound...this breed carries the grey gene along with the Newfoundland they crossed as well and introduced this color gene into their lab gene pools along with all the other traits they were looking for.  So, they didn't just get the thicker belly fur with these crossings...they got everything...all the different genes and chromosomes of all the different breeds!

Now, when breeders breeding for black found a different colored pup in their litters as a result from these different crossings, they would cull or kill the pups, thinking that this would stop the color.  What they may or may not have known at that time was that the black pups they kept from these litters were carriers of the same genes that the pups they killed were carrying.  And so the black pups handed these genes downline anyway.  These color genes and all the different traits became like "sand on the seashore" sprinkled everywhere!  How can one retrieve that sand...the answer...you can't.

That is how the yellow color of all yellow labs came into place.  There was a breeder breeding black to black and had a yellow pup appear in one of the litters.  There is a picture of that first yellow dog in the history books.  It didn't even look yellow or didn't really look at all like a lab looks like today in my opinion.  You could obviously see the different looks from these crossings coming out.  All the black pups in the litter must have looked similar to this odd one.  But this breeder liked the different color of this one pup and so started his quest to bring about a lab of a yellow color.

He MUST have run into some controversy himself with this new color.  Guess it didn't stop him though.  It has taken many, many generations of careful breeding to bring about the yellows we have today.  And even now breeders are taking this yellow color even further by introducing a "Champagne" color and also a "Bi-Color" which are products of different color breedings with different lab lines without bringing in different breeds.

Yes, you say that people are messing with the labrador by bringing about all this change.  I try to breed within the standards and don't always agree with everything I see.   A solid color is one thing, but when someone is trying to achieve a speckled color, that is another.  But it is being done and once the color is mixed in it is like "sand on the seashore".  There is no way that one can take a gene out without many generations upon generations of careful breeding.  And that is only if they know for certain they have ALL the dogs that carry that gene.  Impossible...at least nearly!

I have seen a similar controversy with the chocolate color when we started breeding labs back in 1977.  What about the chocolates?  We found a chocolate pup in a black to yellow breeding from a very good kennel with very good hunting lines and the breeder wanted nothing to do with it because at that time it wasn't an accepted color.  So where did that color come from?  How unique, we thought.  It was a purebred labrador.  We were excited to have that color, something different.  People would stop us and ask what kind of a dog we had.  She was a beauty!  They couldn't believe it was a lab because they thought labs only came in black and yellow.  Pioneering a new color?...how interesting!  The color changed nothing about the standard lab except the color.  Everything else remained the same.

The chocolate color wasn't recognized by the Labrador Club of America until 1987.  But that doesn't mean that the chocolate labs before that date were not purebred labs.  They were purebred, lab to lab breedings.  In fact, the chocolate color or liver as they called it was said to be around overseas just as long as the black color.  Today, in the states, the chocolates are still scrutinized in the show ring, but the color is coming around.  It will eventually be that way with the silvers as well...it will just take time.  Silvers are registered as chocolates, but in a show ring, they don't look chocolate and so may be disqualified without the judge even considering it's a perfect specimen of that breed.  They have titled in the field though, where color is not an issue.  Hunters don't care if the dogs are purple polka dotted just as long as they can do their job as labrador retrievers.

So in my opinion, the silvers have been around a long time... way before I started breeding labradors, way before I was born.  The silvers are pure bred lab to lab breedings.  I intend to better the lab breed with my breedings, keep the lab looking like a lab by breeding within the standards, sticking as close to the blueprint as possible.  The color gene is just that...a color gene.  It changes nothing else about the breed.  I love labs and all they stand for, and I like the silver colors as well.  I intend to improve on them.

Like I have said before in talking with other people about this silver color...In the beginning Henry Ford made all his cars black for many, many years.  Now look at the Fords...a rainbow of colors.  The same Ford quality...just a different color.  People like something different...unique. 

Everyone has different opinions and are entitled to them.  With the silvers, controversy is ok because it will bring more attention to them and eventually as the population increases, I believe the LCA will recognize this color as well.

And that...is the end of this story!

If you are in need of more information about the silvers, have any questions about our adults or pups, please feel free to e-mail us at linda@mallardlanelabradors.com, mallardlanelabradors@gmail.com, or give us a call at 715-693-6886.