The discussion over what is the best labrador colour will probably never end. BLACK IN THE FIELD, YELLOW IN THE SHOW RING Ask those in the shooting field what the best labrador colour is and the answer is generally black. Whereas in the show-ring judges like yellow. Fox-red labs are becoming increasingly popular. In American some owners are even opting for silver labs. Some say chocolate labs are untrainable, but is that really the case? So what is the best labrador colour? Chocolate, yellow, golden, liver or fox red? Read best gundog coat colour: colour coding where David Tomlinson looks at showing and sporting preferences. BEST LABRADOR COLOUR We all know the saying that a good horse can’t be a bad colour, but few people agree that the same principle applies to labradors. When it comes to the best labrador colour, the general rule among the shooting fraternity is that black is good, yellow acceptable, but chocolate is strictly for the show bench. Black has always been the dominant colour in the shooting field and in trials. A telling statistic in The Best of the Best, a history of the IGL retriever championship, is that in the period 1909-2011, 1,790 black labradors qualified to run, compared to just 367 yellows. In the beginning, which with the labrador means the later years of the 19th century, all labradors were black. The first two yellow puppies appeared in a litter bred by Captain (later Major) CE Radcliffe in 1902. One was a dog called Ben, the other a bitch. It is generally believed that all yellow labradors are descended from Ben and his son Neptune. There are no colour photographs of Ben but the few surviving black-and-white shots depict a dark-furred dog, suggesting that he was what we now call fox-red. I can find no record of when the first yellow labradors made their debut in the shooting field but they were first exhibited in the show ring at Olympia in 1913. Yellow soon became popular as the best labrador colour, boosted in 1924 by the foundation of the Yellow Labrador Club. The Club remains active nearly a century later. It was formed to encourage the breeding of pure-yellow labrador retrievers and to conserve the best type of working dog, principles it remains faithful to today. It still holds a novice, an all-aged and an open-qualifying stake each year, with its trials reserved exclusively for yellows. Discrimination on the grounds of colour remains acceptable in the world of dogs, at least with labradors. BEST LABRADOR COLOUR: CURRENT COLOUR TRENDS Quite what the founding members of the Yellow Labrador Club would have made of the current fashion for pale-lemon labradors is another matter. Show enthusiasts are rarely satisfied with what they have, and always want to change and improve on the best labrador colour, which goes a long way towards explaining why the early fox-red labradors fell from favour as breeders, encouraged by judges, sought to produce paler and paler dogs. In recent … Continue reading Best labrador colour: does coat make a difference?