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Breeding for color

20 9:48:26

Question
I have a 4 year old female registered black lab.  Her recorded pedigree consist of all black labs.  I have been considering breeding her and would love to have a white puppy from her.  What is the likelyhood of getting a light colored puppy from her if bred to a white lab?

Answer
Probably not good.  The yellow is recessive, and when a black Lab with a gene for yellow is bred to a yellow Lab, about half the puppies are yellow.  Two black Labs should be able to produce yellow Labs if both have the recessive gene.  The odds would be considerably better if in her litter, or recent generations, there were some yellow puppies.  A black Lab can pass on the recessive gene to another black Lab, even several generations.  Some black Labs will never produce a yellow or chocolate.  

There aren't any real white Labs, just very light colored yellows.  The yellows range from them to where you start calling them chocolates.  That brings in another complication.  The whole thing is fairly complicated.