Labradoodle 101

Hi, everybody. We’re here from Van Isle Labradoodles to do some explaining about Labradoodle colors and patterns today.

We have a new litter that is from our momma dog Spirit, and these puppies are just two days old, and this is what we call a rainbow litter. And by a rainbow litter we mean that we have a variety of colors and patterns. So, this is a great opportunity to show you a few of the different colors and patterns that Labradoodles come in.

So, as you can see here, Spirit is a cream colored Labradoodle, and if Spirit will just let us look at her head … Well, she’s not going to right now. Spirit has a black nose, and she has black gums, and she has black pads on her feet. Those are referred to as leathers. So, you can also … There she is. She’s going to show you her beautiful big black nose, and how she has the black lips, or gums.

So, she is actually what we refer to as an apricot. Apricots are dogs that have these tones that are in the red family, and have the black leathers. So, there are caramels, apricots, and reds. Apricots and reds are the ones that have the black noses, and caramels are the ones that will have brown noses.

Now, you can see in this litter here we have two black puppies, we have a chocolate puppy, and then we have a couple of caramel colored puppies, and then we have a little bit of a lighter almost the same color as Spirit puppies. So, how the heck does one creamy colored Labradoodle produce all these different colors?

Well, just because this is the color that Spirit is, she also carries other colors. So, she has the ability to produce other colors, but not show them on her actual body. So, that’s called expressing the color. She expresses herself as a cream girl whereas she also carries for chocolate, and she also carries for black.

And then we’re going to go into the patterns a little bit in this litter too as we have some interesting patterns. And, again, Spirit produces herself as a solid girl, but she is actually what we call a ghost/phantom. She is a phantom dog, but you can’t see any of her markings because of the color of her. So, it’s really interesting how she can produce different types of dogs depending on who the sire is.

So, the sire for this litter is Trip, and Trip is a tri, which means he is a full phantom, and a full parti. And Trip is a chocolate Labradoodle, and he is a dilute chocolate Labradoodle just to make it even more interesting. So, his coat is not a dark chocolate color. It’s almost a caramel shade, and caramel is one of the chocolate colors. They are actually all forms of yellow, technically speaking, but we refer to them as chocolate most often.

So, we’re going to take this one puppy here, this is one of her black puppies. This is gray collar girl, and this puppy is a puppy that we will refer to as having abstract marks. And abstract markings are when you have a solid colored body, such as this little girl does, and then we have the white markings on her head, around her muzzle, on her paws, and also you can probably see quite a bit of white on her chest as well. Hello, cutie pie. So, that makes for a really stunning combination, especially when you have a really dramatic contrast such as the black and white.

Oh, Spirit’s getting a little annoyed at me for having her up in the air there. So, I’ll just let Spirit have her back. Spirit’s really generous in letting us share her puppies here today when they’re only a couple of days old.

So, that is a Labradoodle who is a solid with abstract markings. You also sometimes will hear breeders referring to those abstract markings as mismarks, but they aren’t mistakes. So, it’s kind of a misnomer. We generally try to focus on having those markings, because they’re really pretty, and they look really nice on our dogs. So, it’s something we go for intentionally.

Now, here’s another little puppy here. Hello, sweetie. This is orange collar. And orange collar girl you will see has … Oops. We got a little hair on our face there. There we go. Take that off there. You will see that she too has quite a few of these white mismarks, but this puppy is what we refer as a tuxedo. And a tuxedo is sometimes also referred as Irish spotting, but tuxedo is the one that you’ll hear most Labradoodles referred to as. And what a tuxedo is, is something that actually resembles a tuxedo. So, you’ll have four white socks on all four paws that should go at least halfway up, and you’ll see how she has that on all four of her paws. Then you’re going to have a good amount of white on the head, such as she does, on the face, and around the neck so sort of to make almost a collar, and then underneath the chin, and on the chest.

So, that’s what makes a tuxedo. And sometimes you’ll get a little white tip, such as she has, on the end of her tail too.

So, where this comes from is that daddy Trip is a parti, and a parti is two colors. 50% white and 50% of another color. And Spirit she carries for parti. So, she has one parti allele, and one that isn’t. So, when you put those two together, and you get one of the alleles that is parti, and one that isn’t you get some of these gorgeous tuxedo markings. So, this is a really pretty pattern, and as she grows we’ll see this develop even more.

Now, this puppy here … If I can find her. I seem to using all the girls for my demonstration today. This one is the only chocolate girl in the litter. Come on little sweat heart. Here she is. And she is what we refer to as a phantom puppy.

So, a phantom is tan points, and you see those on Yorkies, rottweilers, dobermans, breeds like that where you have a solid color, and in Yorkies, dobies, and rotties normally they’re black with the tan points. But they also come in chocolate.

So, this little cutie pie is a chocolate, as you can see. So, these are her tan points here that you can see coming up her leg, and she also has those adorable little white dipped toes. Now, as she gets older the little bit of her white on her feet is not going to be as visible as it is now. And she also has those same points on the side of her face, up above her eyebrows, and then under the bum. Those are all the indications and signs that this is a phantom puppy. And then she also has some of the little white markings here behind her neck. Hello. And underneath her chin, and down her chest you will find that she also has that.

Now, because both mom and dad carry for tri that’s why she is so heavily marked with the white markings on her there. But she is not a full parti, as you can see.

There are actually no partis in this litter. There are lots of markings, and lots of really pretty markings, but no actual partis.

Now, this puppy here, purple collar, who is also a tuxedo … Hi. This puppy has a lot more of the white markings, as you can see. When this puppy was born this was the first puppy I actually thought that he was a parti, and he may end up actually end up being a parti as he gets older. He’s a little harder to tell, because his main body color is so light. He is much more like the cream color that Spirit has.

Now, for these caramel creamy colored puppies they may be caramel, or they may be cream, they may be apricot. And the difference being for that is the color of the leathers. So, if they have the black noses they’ll be apricots or creams or reds, and if they have a brown nose then they’ll be different colors of caramel. And caramel itself has about five different shades. There’s iced caramel, there’s gold caramel, and so on and so forth. So, we just have to wait for a little while, and as this litter develops then we will be able to decide, “Oh, yes. That’s what this one is. This one is a gold. This one is a caramel.” And we’ll see if purple collar really might be a parti, or if he’s going to actually fade right out and be more of a cream like she is, or if his color is going to darken so he would be more like his sister here. And then it will be a little bit easier to just see how much of his body is white and how much is color.

So, there’s a little bit of information on Labradoodle colors and patterns for you, mostly information on their patterns. So, as I said, this is a rainbow litter because we have this wide variety of colors, and then we have all of these really cool patterns that you find in there too.

So, that’s our spring fling litter from Van Isle Labradoodles, and we hope you found this helpful.

If you have any questions about colors or patterns be sure to just ask them in the comments below. I’m happy to answer as best I can. And we will continue to do some color information with our other litters as we expect that we will have some partis and maybe some tris, and all sorts of different things to show you.

One of the most fun things about the Australian Labradoodle breed is that they do come in so many color ways, and so many patterns. It makes for the ability to have every dog really truly unique.

So, thanks so much for watching, and we hope we see you again on our channel.

That’s a good girl.