Hello, I have a 1yr old beloved choc poodle bitch and originally wanted to put her to a choc lab but heard that the short coat dominates; will I end up with puppies that look like wierd labs that nobody wants? What I would like is Jerry look-a-likes, but if I put her to a golden retriever for a longer, shaggier coat will I lose the chocolate completely? Hmmm. I need advice on dominant genes. Thanks, Selina

Selina, I decided to use a Poodle male with my lab females rather than the other way around because I was worried that lab sized pups with the bigger blockier heads/shoulders might be a tight squeeze for a poodle female to deliver. So maybe I'm a worrier, but I'd keep that in mind when choosing a male for her.

Unless you try, it's hard to know what you will get. The reason there's no breed standard is that when you cross 2 such different breeds, you can get any combination of the 2. Without doing DNA testing, there's no way to even know what colors you might get. With black being the default color, you could even get all black pups!

Really do your homework by reading about dog genetics before you jump in. It's seriously fascinating reading!

I just had a litter of 12 from an apricot poodle male and black lab female. Here's the color range I got.



The jury is still out on what the coats will be.