Here is a picture of Coffee with 2 of his siblings. This picture is so cute it could be on a calendar ! It was taken by the breeder a week before we brought our little cup of coffee home. Coffee was the most mischievous of the pack and got in lots of trouble in his first 2 weeks.

If you have a chocolate Labrador that comes from American Field Champion blood lines, you can most likely trace at least one path to a dog named Avon born in 1885 in England.  Avon came from imported St. John's dogs of Newfoundland to the third Earl of Malmsbury.  Avon was the son of Malmsbury Tramp and Malmsbury June. The chocolate gene has carried through from Avon to some of our current American National Field Champion lines. There are many sources that indicate that this dog named (Buccleuch) Avon sired "liver colored" pups.  Liver was the term used for chocolate Labs prior to the standardization of color references in Labradors.  The Buccleuch kennel did not keep these pups as breeding dogs but would pass "unsuitable" breeding stock to friends and family as pets.  At the time breeders were trying to perfect a black line of dogs.  Nevertheless, Avon did pass on his chocolate gene as a recessive trait to many of his black offspring.  While we cannot do any sort of genetic testing of long dead dogs to see which ones were genetic carriers, we can look at the bloodlines of current Labradors to see likely pathways for the color.