Chocolate Labs Are Less Healthy Than Their Black and Yellow Puppy Pals

[Eugene]

Source: Live Science

Chocolate Labs Are Less Healthy Than Their Black and Yellow Puppy Pals

By Yasemin Saplakoglu, Staff Writer | October 22, 2018 07:23am ET

The color of a dog's coat could be linked to its health — at least for one globally popular pet.

Chocolate Labrador retrievers tend to live shorter lives and have a higher rate of skin and ear diseases than their black or yellow-coated peers, according to a new study published yesterday (Oct. 21) in the journal Canine Genetics and Epidemiology. [10 Things You Didn't Know About Dogs]

An international group of researchers examined data from more than 2,000 Labradors living in the U.K. in 2013. The data was collected as a part of research project called VetCompass, a collaboration between the University of Sydney and the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London. The group of around 2,000 Labs was randomly selected from a larger dataset containing more than 33,000 Labrador retrievers.

The researchers found that, within the sample set of the dogs they studied, the incidence of ear and skin disease was much more prevalent in chocolate Labs than in other Labs.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.livescience.com/63878-color-labrador-retriever-health.html

[MontanaMama]

1. Interesting article.

I've had 4 chocolate labs and all have lived long full lives. None have had skin or ear issues but I'm a believer in regular grooming and good quality dog food to keep their coats healthy and making sure their ears are dried out after a day of duck hunting on the water. I hear all kinds of scuttle regarding health issues about the strains of silver labs that are becoming popular these days but without science, I don't know if it is just sour grapes from the purists - the yellow and black lab only folks.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. There Was A Lot Of Forced Breeding

Chocolates with chocolates, and so on.

Our current doggie almost ended up a chocolate but when i got to the people's farm, someone had already been there 10 minutes before and wanted the brown one. (The puppies still needed second worming, so nobody took the dogs the day they showed up, it was a few days later after the vet came back.)

These people bred horses but not dogs. But, they had a yellow mama and a black daddy, so one of the litter turned out chocolate. All the rest, boys and girls, were yellow.

So, i felt ok thinking about that chocolate, because they weren't trying to pop out a brown one, it just happened, so single bit errors in the gene code were less likely.

My yellow buddy is very healthy and still quite trim for a dog that doesn't get out much, because i ain't no hunter/fisherman.

[MontanaMama]

4. I see lots of hip and shoulder issues with labs

that have happened through poor/lazy breeding practices. We've always had chocolates but don't look for people that specifically breed for that trait. We look for good hips/shoulders in the pedigree because that's most important thing and the chocolate part is a happy bonus.

[TEB]

2. I concur

My chocolate is need of mental therapy