Not an error. Not a crossbreed. It is the St. John's dog returning through five centuries of genetic history.
It is known by many names: long-haired Labrador, Fluffy Labrador, Wavy Coat. On social media it often circulates as a rarity to seek out, sometimes as a "defect" to avoid, sometimes as a "mutation". None of these descriptions is accurate. Long hair in the Labrador is a natural genetic variant, present in the breed before the breed itself existed as such — because it derives directly from the St. John's dog, the common ancestor of all modern retrievers.
The St. John's dog — the Newfoundland landrace from which all modern retrievers derive — existed in two varieties: short-haired and long-haired. The distinction was neither one of breed nor of quality. It was purely practical: the short coat did not hold water and did not form ice when the dog came out of the sea in winter. The island's fishermen preferred the short coat for this reason. Long-haired specimens were sold to the English, who found them equally capable and used them to haul wood in winter. The earliest documented historical descriptions — the 1822 text cited by various breed historians — explicitly refer to these two varieties as the same type of dog.
When the Malmesburys in Dorset and the Buccleuchs in Scotland began selecting the short-haired specimens to build what would become the Labrador Retriever, they consciously chose to work with the short-haired variety. But the long-hair gene was already present in the lines they were importing — because it was present in the original St. John's dog. In their breeding records, long-haired specimens regularly appear, along with yellow, brown and brindled dogs: the inheritance of the original landrace returning to the surface. Lord Malmesbury himself acknowledged in his notes that he had not succeeded in keeping his lines completely free of long hair.
In 1860 Mr. Shirley crossed long-haired specimens of the St. John's dog with a now-extinct spaniel — and according to some authors also with setters and bloodhounds — creating the Wavy Coat Retriever, later renamed the Flat Coated Retriever. For years at shows, pure long-haired specimens imported from Canada were preferred, because the Wavy was still too imperfect for the tastes of the era. The name "Wavy Coat" — wavy coat — described exactly this coat type: longer than the standard Labrador, slightly wavy, with the characteristic feathering on the ears and tail. It is the name we still use in this kennel to refer to the long-haired Labrador, out of respect for the history from which it comes.
After the Second World War the Labrador faced extinction due to the drastic fall in births during the conflict. To prevent the worst, cross-breeding with related retrievers was temporarily resumed — particularly with the Flat Coated Retriever. This episode, documented in the archives of British breed clubs, partly explains why the long-hair gene was never definitively eliminated from the lines of the modern Labrador, and why it still resurfaces today even in bloodlines that had not produced long-haired specimens for generations.
Long hair in the Labrador is determined by a recessive mutation in the FGF5 gene — Fibroblast Growth Factor 5. This gene regulates the hair growth cycle: in its normal form (dominant allele) the hair stops growing after a certain point, producing the typical short, dense coat of the Labrador. In the mutated form (recessive allele), the growth stop signal is impaired — and the hair continues to grow, producing the longer and sometimes wavy coat of the Wavy Coat.
Scientific research has identified five variants of the FGF5 gene associated with long hair in dogs. The most common variant — FGF5:c.284G>T (designated L or p.Cys95Phe) — is the one detected in most breeds, including the Labrador Retriever. Studies published in Animal Genetics (Dierks et al., 2013) demonstrated that in many breeds this single mutation fully explains the long-hair phenotype, while in some breeds such as the Akita and Samoyed different variants are involved. In the Labrador, the L variant is the genetic explanation for the Wavy Coat.
An important point: research from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NIH), published in Science in 2009, demonstrated that coat type in dogs is fundamentally determined by three genes — FGF5 (length), KRT71 (straightness/curl) and RSPO2 (beard and eyebrows). In the long-haired Labrador, only the FGF5 gene is active — the coat is long but remains straight or slightly wavy, without the KRT71 curl or the RSPO2 beard. This explains why the Wavy Coat resembles the coat of an ancient retriever, not that of a Poodle or Spaniel.
The Wavy Coat is recognisable as early as 3-5 weeks of age, when the coat begins to manifest as longer and softer compared to short-coated littermates. At maturity the coat is significantly longer — with evident feathering on the ears, abdomen, back of the legs and tail. Some lines produce more wavy hair, others smoother but simply longer than normal.
For everything else — bone structure, character, retrieving instinct, love of water, intelligence, sociability — the Wavy Coat is identical to the short-coated Labrador. It is not another breed. Not a crossbreed. Not a health problem. It is the same breed, with the same genetic heritage, with a gene that expresses itself differently.
Today there is a specific genetic test for the FGF5 variant in the Labrador. The test allows the three genotypes to be distinguished: L/L (short-haired, non-carrier), L/l (short-haired, carrier) and l/l (Wavy Coat). It is available from several specialist laboratories — including Laboklin, MyDogDNA, VGL Davis and Genomia — at a cost generally between €40 and €70 per sample.
The choice of whether or not to test one's breeding dogs for FGF5 depends on the philosophy of the kennel. Those who consider the Wavy Coat a defect to be avoided will test breeding dogs to exclude matings between carriers. Those who — like this kennel — consider long hair a legitimate and historically grounded variant, simply communicate transparently to their buyers the possibility that long-haired specimens may appear in a litter. In both cases, the test provides information. It does not pass judgement.
FCI Standard No. 122 describes the Labrador Retriever's coat as "dense, without waves or fringing, with a water-resistant undercoat". Long hair is therefore outside the standard — a Wavy Coat cannot be shown in the normal class and does not obtain the titles reserved for specimens conforming to the morphological standard.
This does not mean that the long-haired puppy cannot be registered with ENCI and receive a pedigree — the pedigree certifies genealogy, not morphological conformity. A Wavy Coat born from two parents registered in the ENCI Studbook is entitled to a pedigree and registration, exactly like its short-coated littermates. The difference lies in the possibility of showing and titles — not in purity, not in health, not in value as a companion or working dog.
It is not an error to be hidden nor a rarity to be inflated in value. It is the St. John's dog returning — and every long-haired puppy born is a witness to a story five hundred years old.