# Breeding my chocolate lab with a golden retriever



## OkieFarmer22 (May 26, 2018)

Hi,
If I decided I wanted to breed my female chocolate lab with my dark red golden retriever, what color would the puppies be? Would they be chocolate? My Golden is almost the color of a Irish setter.
My Lab was bred with two chocolate labs, and her brothers and sisters were chocolate, that's about all I know of her background

Could the pups be black?


----------



## Bunnylady (May 26, 2018)

This question was answered for you on BYC - the pups will almost certainly be black.  A Chocolate Lab has two copies of a gene for brown. There are two forms of that gene, the brown form and the black form, and an animal must  inherit two copies of the brown form (one from the mother, and one from the father) to be brown. Goldens are _supposed_ to all have two copies of the black form, and an animal that inherits either two copies of black, or one for black and one for brown, can't be brown.

Goldens also have two copies of a totally separate gene that tosses the black/brown pigment out of the coat, and leaves only a yellow pigment. Some Labs have that gene, too. Your Lab isn't yellow, so he can't have two copies of the yellow gene, but it is possible that he could be carrying one copy. If he is, he could give it to some of his babies - so some of the puppies might be yellow. Since Yellow Labs are so much lighter than Goldens, any yellow puppies would be a much lighter shade of yellow than your Golden is.

The color of the pups is far less important than their health, and there are a lot of problems in large dog breeds that are controlled by their genetics, just as much as their  color is. It doesn't matter if the dogs are the same breed or not; things like bad hips aren't limited to just a few breeds. A responsible breeder will screen their dogs for these problems _before_ they even think about breeding, to guarantee that any pups they produce at least have a chance of living long, healthy, useful lives.


----------



## Baymule (May 26, 2018)

Why breed to create mutts? Not a hostile question, just asking.


----------



## Wehner Homestead (May 26, 2018)

X2 I had the same question, just wasn’t sure how to ask...


----------



## Latestarter (May 27, 2018)

Having owned several goldens... why would you want to breed to a lab? In addition to different body builds, one is a short hair while the other is long. What are your intentions for the pups? Not sure I understand why you'd want to do this...


----------



## BettySmith (Jun 29, 2018)

I agree, why do you need to breed the golden to a lab...!


----------



## BrendaMNgri (Jun 30, 2018)

Baymule said:


> Why breed to create mutts? Not a hostile question, just asking.


 Thankyou @Baymule  yes, why are you doing this.....the shelters are so full of mix mutts similar to what you want to create. Please reconsider this @OkieFarmer22 - also not being hostile. Being said by a responsible breeder to make you sit down and think about why why why....as you can see the prevailing responses in this thread to your question share my sentiment, too.


----------



## BrendaMNgri (Jun 30, 2018)

PS: "Just because you can...does not mean you _should." _


----------



## Rammy (Nov 12, 2018)

Just found this so I know its old. My question would also be......why? would you do that? There are enough mix breed dogs in shelters. Why create more?


----------

