Okay, let’s talk about something that popped up recently. Someone asked me about Labrador Retrievers with blue eyes. It got me thinking because I’ve been around dogs, especially Labs, for quite a while now.
My first thought was, wait a minute. I’ve seen plenty of Labs – black ones, yellow ones, chocolate ones. Their eyes? Always seemed to be brown, maybe hazel sometimes, but never bright blue like you see on some other dogs.
So, I decided to dig into this a bit. It wasn’t like a huge research project, more like pulling on a thread, you know? I went back through my own memories, photos I’ve taken, dogs I’ve known. Then I chatted with a couple of people who’ve been breeding Labs for ages, folks who really know the breed inside and out.
Here’s what I found out, plain and simple:
- Purebred Labradors just don’t have blue eyes. It’s not a color that shows up in the breed standard. Their eyes should be brown or hazel.
- When you see a dog that looks like a Lab but has striking blue eyes, it’s almost certainly not a purebred Lab.
Usually, those blue eyes are a dead giveaway that there’s another breed mixed in there somewhere. Think about breeds that are known for blue eyes, like Siberian Huskies or sometimes Australian Shepherds or Border Collies. If a Lab mixes with one of those breeds down the line, you might get a puppy that looks mostly Lab but inherits the blue eyes.
So, the conclusion I came to, based on talking to experienced people and just looking at the breed facts, is pretty clear. A Labrador with blue eyes isn’t really fitting the purebred profile. It’s likely got a bit of something else in its family tree. It was interesting to confirm what I kind of already suspected from experience.
