Reply To: https://www.foxnews.com/science/dogs-color-linked-to-how-long-they-live-and-thei

[Jennifer]

Hi Lindsay — I think(?) you meant to reply to me. My question was why they didn’t break down longevity for blacks and yellows separately, as opposed to averaging them together under “non-chocolate.” Especially since the implication is that chocolate being a recessive may have something to do with the longevity difference, when in fact yellow is a recessive too.

It may be that there’s simply no statistically significant difference in longevity between blacks and yellows–that would perhaps fit with what I was speculating might be a breed history in which chocolates (but not yellows) were once quite uncommon, and only recently experienced a dramatic increase in numbers due to color-driven show/pet market breeding. I don’t know enough abut Lab breeding to know how common it is for breeders to concertedly select for yellow vs. freely breeding yellows and blacks together based on other criteria (working ability, conformation etc.) and just letting the chips fall where they may in terms of color.

Still, as far as I can see, the study doesn’t actually say one way or another whether there was, in fact, any statistically significant longevity difference between blacks and yellows.