FOX RED LABRADORS FOR SALE TEXAS
Like most colors of Labrador in the earliest history of the breed, I’m sad to say the majority of fox red Labradors were culled at birth.
Like many of the Labrador’s earliest color variations, fox red Labradors faced an unfortunate history. The majority were culled at birth, largely because the Labrador was developed as a working dog for hunting, and the hunting fraternity strongly favored the Black Labrador over all other colors. As a result, fox red Labradors became relatively uncommon.
Interestingly, this was quite different from the trend we see today. In the early days of the breed, the more common shades of yellow ranged from dark yellow to fox red, while the lighter shades of yellow and cream that we typically associate with Labradors today were actually quite rare. In fact, the first yellow Labrador to be officially registered was a dark golden color.
Over time, preferences within the breed changed, and the lighter shades became increasingly popular. Today, fox red Labradors are highly sought after for their rich, distinctive coloring—a fascinating contrast to their early history.
The rebirth of the fox red began with two UK breeders, John and Glenda Crook of Balrion and Mac Bedford of Wynfaul Labradors
who shared a dedicated interest in dark yellow dogs. The Crooks owned one of the most famous Labradors of all time, Ch Balrion King Frost, who consistently produced very dark yellow offspring. One of Frost's granddaughters eventually produced Ch Wynfaul Tabasco—the father of the modern fox red Labrador—a stunning, well-conformed dog who became the only modern fox red Show Champion in the UK, and who traced his lineage back to Great Britain's last Dual Champion, Knaith Benjo. To test their genetics theory, Tabasco was bred to Lady Bountiful of Balrion, a dark yellow daughter of Show Ch Balrion Kings Ransom (another son of King Frost). The resulting litter was entirely fox red, successfully proving that breeding fox red to fox red yields all fox red pups.
Within that milestone litter was a red male puppy named Balrion Red Alert, who was sold to Sally Kelley of Kelleygreen Labradors in the United States. Through Red Alert’s import, breeders like Kelleygreen and Keepsake Labradors played a massive role in establishing the color line, to the point where Red Alert appears multiple times in nearly every modern fox red pedigree. Today, while the major global kennel clubs do not recognize the Fox Red Labrador as an independent color—treating it instead as a shade variation of the official Yellow Labrador—the color remains highly prized. We specialize in Red Labs, Chocolate Labs, Yellow Labs, and Black Labs.
