I find these every once in a while. Here is a pedigree of a golden named Lady Betty. I know nothing of her golden retriever ancestors, and they aren’t mentioned in her pedigree either. However her black ancestors are known to every flat-coat historian. Ch’s Black Drake, Darenth, and Black Queen all appear in the pedigree. When I go back through Black Drake, I find that he had Ch. Moonstone as a great grandsire. Moonstone carried the gene for yellow or red, because when he was bred to his dam, that breeding produced one red puppy named Foxcote. This might explain why a breeding between a descendant of Moonstone might be bred to a golden to produce a golden puppy. Moonstone’s litter brother, Tracer, was bred into the line kept at Guisachan– for obvious reasons!
Ch. Black Drake
Ch. Black Queen
Ch. Moonstone, an influential black flat-coat champion who produced at least one red puppy named Foxcote, when bred to his mother.
All of these dogs were black, but they did play a role in founding the golden retriever. They didn’t have closed registries back then, and even though there was a lot of line-breeding and inbreeding, they didn’t have the two breeds separate as they are today.
Goldens have black dogs in their pedigrees. These were some of the elite in flat-coated retriever history.
And some of their descendants were blonds and red-heads– and became a separate breed.
In Gertrude Fischer’s The New Complete Golden Retriever, with Marcia Schlehr, there is mention of black patched of hair that may show up from time to time. The authors note that these dogs are not to be bred.
This is interesting for I would think a patch of dark to black hair is a throwback to the flatcoats and it’s the parents’ genes not the puppies’ that are the cause. Not breeding the puppies will surely stop the black patches. Not breeding the parents and the parents’ siblings, both full and half, will stop it sooner.
Ah, the beauty of genetics, they can screw breeding programs up big time.
In Marcia Schlehr’s book, she explains what this is. It’s a somatic mutation called the “black spot phenomenon.” That means it’s not inherited at all.
Here’s more on it, with some photos of a golden with it:
http://www.ashgi.org/color/Aussie_somatic_mutations.html
Sending you this comment from my uncle, who, after reading your post, left in a great hurry to catch an early tide – I have not corrected his spelling for him, as I usually do:
“Must weigh anchor n shove off now, but wantn to leave noen if it waz reelie a DOG witch got the black spot? did he bite sumun inportant?
Fast weathr 2 im n good lick 2 im if e wuz a rite pierat dog!
But from myself, i want to say that i think it would be cool to have a living dog carrying a black spot, especially a sea dog breed like a retriever.
Except that few people i know would dare to pet a dog with a black spot.
I have seen a Saluki with such extensive markings from that that she looked merle.
Call it what you will, it may be idiopathic, but if it is not inherited, why say not to breed the dog?
Buncombe!
Gertrude Fischer’s book (both editions) was published years before the Schlehr book.
The only reason for saying not to breed dogs with the black spot, is that perhaps the gene (ee) in that dog is unstable and might mutate again. There is certainly no reason not to breed the parents again.
Black markings due to other genetic factors, would be something different entirely.
In the pedigree of Lady Betty’s daughter Folda given on the toga.cc website linked above, there is something fishy: Lady Betty’s birthdate is given as 14 Feb 1908, and her daughter Folda’s birthdate is given as 15 Jun 1906. ???