My puppies

[Mags]

Ooooh sounds very complicated! It must be nice when you (or rather your dog! ) is expecting different colours - wondering what they'll all be like.

[Jessica]

Awww... I had a litter of black and chocolate lab pups in December! We kept two and they're beautiful!

You have to be very careful with breeding different colours together. For example, we were advised against breeding our black bitch to a yellow dog as the pigmentation on any yellow pups could turn out wrong (pink noses and eyes!) and the same can happen with yellow and chocolate if they dont have the right colours and genetics in the lines of each dog... It is very complicated!!

The mum of my pups came from a show line (most of the dogs in her line had been shown and done well) though her mother and grandmother were both used as working dogs on the farm where they lived!

Oooh, and my dog (the mum) has a lot of chocolate in her line so carries the 'chocolate gene' and we bred her to a chocolate dog and ended up with an exact 50/50 split of chocolate and black puppies, having four of each. Though two of the chocolate pups died shortly after being born..

Anyway, back on topic, gorgeous puppies!!!

[Abbi]

wow they are gorgeous I would want to keep them all !!!

[Mags]

PK, your daughter (?) doesn't look like she wants to let that first one go - she's got luv in her eyes!!

[Moli]

I have noticed at the classes differences between working labs and show labs, the working ones,seem to be chunkier....

[smudgley]

We do breed our own pups at Guide Dogs & have a huge breeding programme - (all bitches & dogs live / whelp in family homes ) but we do occasionally have outside bred pups donated to us or sometimes we will buy outside bred pups, obviously they have to be from good parents / health tested / excellent temperament / excellent pedigree & of good type.This benefits us as we need to sometimes bring in new carefully selected bloodlines.

We don't have many choccs within Guide Dogs mainly because our well established breeding lines don't carry choc genes, but we have now got 2 choc lab broods on the programme. Unfortunately we have had a lower success rate in training with chocs than other colours.

In my opinion black / yellow are very similar but I do think the chocs are more demanding & harder to train.

Show labs are very short legged / stocky & (dare I say it... usually very overweight!) Working labs (as in working dogs to the gun) are usually fitter / more slender build.

[Fran]

I agree with you Smudgley, show type labs do tend to be shorter in the leg and chunkier and in my opinion working bred labs tend to be more slender, more demanding and 'fizzier'. I keep both my girls lean even the show bred one as it is better on their hips and a must if they are going into whelp. Both my girls are hip scored and eye tested and interestingly, it's my working bred girl that is very very clever and in my opinion would have made an excellant assistance dog; exceptionally willing and easy to train. She her self with no teaching for this will go and open the door for my 18 year old if she wants to go out of the room and is struggling. She hears Lucky scratching and scratching trying to pull the door open and will go and open it for her

[Fran]

Originally Posted by Mags

PK, your daughter (?) doesn't look like she wants to let that first one go - she's got luv in her eyes!!

This puppy is certainly Emily's favourite from this litter. She calls her dracula puppy as she has a couple of white hairs on her neck. It is difficult for the children as they get so attached to the puppies but we are planning to keep a black girl from Maddie's next litter, so this is keeping the children going!! They can't wait!!!

[Fran]

The puppy that Emily is holding has been called Truffle by her new owners She will be leaving us in two weeks

[bobbie3917]

thats the worst thing about breeding is they have to go