Читать книгу Training Your Labrador Retriever - September Morn - Страница 9

Labs come in three solid colors: black, yellow, and chocolate. No other colors are permitted by the Labrador Retriever Standard. A small spot of white on the chest is permissible but not desirable. Markings elsewhere, any other color, or a mix of colors disqualifies a Lab from the conformation ring.

Black, yellow, and chocolate pups can appear together in one litter if the parents’ gene combination is right. Regardless of color, a Lab should conform to the Standard.

For more than 400 years hunters have extolled the virtues of one color retriever over another. Way back in 1621 Gervase Markham attempted to put the matter to rest in his book Hunger’s Prevention and the Whole Art of Fowling by Land and Water, arguing that a good dog is the product of training, not color. The language is archaic, but Markham’s assertion is still sound:

First, for the Colours of the best Water Dogge; albeit some will describe more excellence to one Colour than another.… Yet in truth it is nothing so, for all Colours are alike.… Instruction is the Liquor wherewith they are seasoned and if they be well handled at the first, they will ever smell of that discretion, and if they be ill handled they will ever stink of that Folly.

Note: Coat color is not linked to body type or temperament and has nothing to do with how good a companion, hunter, or show dog a Lab will be.

Labs come in three colors: black, yellow, and chocolate.