I looked at a litter of puppies and some of them had longer coats. There wasn't any "hard" feel to these coats and they almost looked and felt like Golden Retriever puppies ... except they were blacks and chocolates. They didn't have the fuzzy face of a Golden, though, ... normal shaped Lab face (in fact, nice heads).

I'm sure someone on this list has handled a long coated puppy. Can you tell me what the coat felt like? Does the coat improve with age?

Could a normal coated adult start out with a coat like this?

Puppy coats are different than adult coats. What were the parents' coats like???

Yes...I have had this...actually ended up being a keeper from my last litter. I was shocked at how long the puppy fuzz was! Had never seen that before. When we stacked the pup up on the table...it was apparent from a structure standpoint that this was the one we would keep. The puppy lost it's long fuzz and now at 3 mos of age has a lovely, harsh coat coming in. Glad I kept it because it is a lovely puppy!

Meant to add that I would suggest you look at the parents coats as well.

Yes, I had a yellow male puppy in my last litter, for the first 7 weeks I swore he was a long coat! He had long SOFT fur - not even hair! He too was the best puppy in the litter. When he started to get his "racing stripe" as my kids call it, the adult coat down the spine, it came in harsher. He has a nice coat now - a little plusher than some people like - but a lot more tell me what a gorgeous coat he has for a yellow.

Valerie Jones

I'll bet those fluffy kids carry the longcoat gene!Our new boy carries it,I'd love to get my hands on some of his puppy pics-I'm sure he was a fluffy kid!He's got a superb,thick,crisp coat now.

Interesting - my 2 Big daughters both came back carrying the long-hair gene as well. Has anyone tested a known long-coated Labrador and came back as homozygous for the gene?

My Big son came back a carrier of the long coat gene as well.

Hm - anyone have any Big kids that don't carry the long-hair gene?

ps - if anyone has pictures of a long-hair Labrador, I'd love to have it emailed to me. I used to have a couple, but can't find them on this computer!

Patty - Does Ingen to the long coat test?

Yes - this was the Ingen test - I've really got no idea if this is the same gene, I assume it is, that causes the long hair in Labradors.

http://webpages.charter.net/lofgren/Fluffy.htm