Talk about being nosey...

Black, Yellow and Liver Chatham Hill Retrievers
Diversity Breeding Guidelines we follow

As we've learned...the color of your dog is indicated by the color on the nose.  Yes, the nose not the color of it's coat.  The eyes are also indicators Since like the nose if it's a black dog then the eyes will be black, too.  And if the dog is Liver it will have Amber or Gold eyes.  We found this VETGEN color chart while researching color predictions in dogs about 6 years back. At the time this was directed at Labrador breeders to help assist with calculating the percentages of colored puppies in the resulting litters if breeders mixed and matched different colored parents.  And using this as the basis for our Flat Coats we found it was usually pretty accurate once we knew the DNA color profile of our foundation of dogs.  And we've DNA tested all our dogs for the color they "really" are.

	BBEE I	BBEe II	BbEE III	BbEe IV	BBee V	Bbee VI	bbee VII	bbEE VIII	bbEe IX
BBEE I	All Black	All Black	All Black	All Black	All Black	All Black	All Black	All Black	All Black
BBEe II	All Black	¾ Black ¼ Yellow	All Black	¾ Black ¼ Yellow	½ Black ½ Yellow	½ Black ½ Yellow	½ Black ½ Yellow	All Black	¾ Black ¼ Yellow
BbEE III	All Black	All Black	¾ Black ¼ Choc.	¾ Black ¼ Choc.	All Black	¾ Black ¼ Choc.	½ Black ½ Choc.	½ Black ½ Choc.	½ Black ½ Choc.
BbEe IV	All Black	¾ Black ¼ Yellow	¾ Black ¼ Choc.	9/16Black ¼ Yellow 3/16Choc.	½ Black ½ Yellow	⅜ Black ½ Yellow ⅛ Choc.	¼ Black ½ Yellow ¼ Choc.	½ Black ½ Choc.	⅜ Black ¼ Yellow ⅜ Choc.
BBee V	All Black	½ Black ½ Yellow	All Black	½ Black ½ Yellow	All Yellow	All Yellow	All Yellow	All Black	½ Black ½ Yellow
Bbee VI	All Black	½ Black ½ Yellow	¾ Black ¼ Choc.	⅜ Black ½ Yellow ⅛ Choc.	All Yellow	All Yellow	All Yellow	½ Black ½ Choc.	¼ Black ½ Yellow ¼ Choc.
bbee VII	All Black	½ Black ½ Yellow	½ Black ½ Choc.	¼ Black ½ Yellow ¼ Choc.	All Yellow	All Yellow	All Yellow	All Choc.	½ Choc. ½ Yellow
bbEE VIII	All Black	All Black	½ Black ½ Choc.	½ Black ½ Choc.	All Black	½ Black ½ Choc.	All Choc.	All Choc.	All Choc.
bbEe IX	All Black	¾ Black ¼ Yellow	½ Black ½ Choc.	⅜ Black ¼ Yellow ⅜ Brown	½ Black ½ Yellow	¼ Black ½ Yellow ¼ Brown	½ Choc. ½ Yellow	All Choc.	¾ Choc. ¼ Yellow

The Chart also helps to understand where a dog that may be a carrier for another color comes into play as a part of the selective breeding process.  Dogs that are Black can be carriers for the Liver or Yellow color.  And if you pair two parents that appear black on the outside, they can very well produce a litter of puppies that are all three colors.  And that is amazing.  Also note that the chart shows the color of the dogs depicted as concentric circles.  The outermost circle indicates the dominant color of the dog's coat and the small dot connected to the circle indicates the color of the dog's nose.  The inner circles indicate what type of recessive color carrier they are.  Some dogs can be Black or Liver dominant and also recessively carry both of the other colors.  The real hard hitting fact about this chart...

The Wonderful World of the Internet

For Diversity Breeding Guidelines we follow Click Here

Chatham Hill Dogs received a call recently that was very pleasant, flattering and eye opening.  The person on the other end said they feel so honored to be speaking with us and had been following us for many years.  Reading our posts on many forums and blogs and after absorbing what we have to say... becoming a follower and a fan of our ideologies.  he pointed out that whenever we were challenged or flamed we never recoiled or faded away, but always came back with an informed response.  Well, most times that was the case.  I do recall some times when the derogatory insults were just tossed right back at the stone throwers.  

This conversation opened our eyes to the fact that we've caused a stir in the dog loving communities all around the world.  That people are talking about us and what we do.  Some opinions are stronger than others. Some are pro and some are con, while others are sort of just sitting back and watching from a neutral position.  Some of these observations come from individuals and others are from organizations.  However from our perspective they are all indicative of one major thing that is important to us.  There has been an awareness brought to the attention of the world that we are doing things differently and seeing much better results because of our choices.  If they're talking, then if Chatham Hill Dogs is an enabler for the debates that arise because of it... then we're happy for it.

To our surprise this long time fan brought to our attention that one of the organizations that has actually had something to say about what we're doing was actually the Kennel Union of South Africa aka KUSA.  If you click the link it will take you to their page which addresses the topic of the Yellow Flat Coated Retriever with an entry that was co written by Jane Laing – Woodside Flatcoated Retrievers and Diane Holman – Trevena Retrievers. And how they basically believe regarding how yellow FCR and the rules of the British Kennel Club should apply in the spirit of maintaining the legacy of the original creators of the Flat Coated retriever in following the tradition of removing the yellow from the breeding population.  Breeding only Liver and Black colored dogs. Keep in mind these two writers for KUSA are people we've never met or spoken to.