Marshlight Labradors
LowcountryLabrador Retrievers
English-type Labrador Retrievers, raised on a tidal creek in Beaufort, South Carolina.
Labrador Retriever
Beaufort, SC
Proud Member Of
The Labrador Retriever Club, Inc.Our Story
English-type Labrador Retrievers, raised on a tidal creek in Beaufort, South Carolina.
We live on a tidal creek on Lady's Island, across the bridge from downtown Beaufort, in a raised cottage with a dock that floods at the top of a king tide. Nell grew up here with a black Lab named Gus who rode in the bow of her father's johnboat. Wyatt married into the marsh and the dogs at the same time.
Our first Labrador of our own, a yellow girl named Glass, came to us in 2009 from a breeder who showed her dogs and hunted them too. That is still the kind of Labrador we care about: the classic English type, with a broad head, a thick otter tail, a real double coat and a temperament steady enough to lie under a restaurant table. Glass had our first litter in 2011. Fifteen years on, most of the dogs in the house are her great-grandchildren.
Current Litters
Cotton × Skip
Ready to go home: October 15, 2026
2 of 7 available
Born August 20, 2026
Seven yellow puppies, three boys and four girls, born on a Thursday evening during a thunderstorm that Cotton ignored completely. It was an easy whelping, a little under five hours from first to last, and everyone was nursing within minutes. Birth weights were 14 to 18 ounces. They are named for the sea islands up and down this coast. Both parents are yellow, so every puppy is yellow. Two yellow Labradors cannot produce a black or chocolate puppy. Shades run from Cotton's pale cream to Skip's medium gold, and the ears are the best guide to where each will end up. All have black pigment. None can be affected by EIC, CNM, PRA-prcd or HNPK, and none carry dilute. At four and a half weeks they are up on their legs, eating softened food twice a day and keeping their bed clean. They moved out to the porch pen last weekend, and on Saturday we carried the basket out to the garden for their first portraits, where nobody stayed in it for long. The shallow pool comes out next week and the first trip to the creek edge will follow around seven weeks, weather and tide permitting. They go home from October 15. Two are still available.
This Litter
Bull · Yellow
Male
Edisto · Yellow
Male
Fripp · Light yellow
Male
Dewees · Light yellow
Female
Kiawah · Yellow
Female
Seabrook · Light yellow
Female
Tybee · Yellow
FemaleWhat We Offer
Everything your puppy needs to grow up well.
A calm, considered program — built on quiet mornings and long walks.
Available Puppies
Browse current litters and see which puppies are still looking for their forever home.
Meet Our Parents
Every puppy's future starts with its parents. Health-tested sires and dams, raised right.
Health Guarantee
Each puppy is covered by a written guarantee to 26 months of age against hip and elbow dysplasia as evaluated by OFA, and for life against EIC, CNM, PRA-prcd and HNPK, since both parents are tested and we can tell you exactly what each puppy can and cannot inherit. If a covered condition is diagnosed, we refund the purchase price or offer a puppy from a later litter, whichever you prefer, and the dog stays with you. We ask in return that you keep your puppy lean and off forced exercise while the joints are growing, which the contract spells out. Any Marshlight dog may come back to us at any point in its life.
Why Choose Us
What we hold close.
Classic English type
Broad heads, otter tails, dense double coats and calm minds. We breed to the AKC standard and to the dogs we grew up with, in black, yellow and chocolate only.
Full clearances, including dilute
OFA hips and elbows, yearly eyes, cardiac echo, and DNA for EIC, CNM, PRA-prcd and HNPK. Every dog here tests D/D at the D locus. Results are public on OFA.
Honest color genetics
We test the B and E locus on every dog and tell you before the breeding which colors a pairing can produce. No surprises, and no promises the genes cannot keep.
Raised on the water
Puppies meet a shallow pool at five weeks and the creek edge at seven, on a warm day and a rising tide, with their mother showing them how it is done.
Kind Words
Dogs and the families that love them.
15
Years breeding
150+
Families served
21
Litters whelped
6
Health-tested dogs
Common Questions
Plain, honest answers.
It is an informal name, not a separate breed. There is one Labrador Retriever and one AKC standard. Over time, dogs bred for the show ring and dogs bred for field trials have drifted apart in looks. English type, sometimes called show or bench type, means the heavier-boned dog with a broad skull, a shorter muzzle, a barrel chest and a thick otter tail. They tend to be calmer in the house than field-bred dogs, which suits most families. Ours still swim and retrieve all day if you let them. Our males finish around 78 to 85 pounds and females 65 to 70, in working condition, not fat.
Hips and elbows are X-rayed at two years or older and graded by OFA. Eyes are examined every year by a veterinary ophthalmologist. Hearts are checked by echocardiogram, because tricuspid valve dysplasia occurs in the breed and a stethoscope can miss it. By DNA we test for exercise induced collapse (EIC), centronuclear myopathy (CNM), PRA-prcd, hereditary nasal parakeratosis (HNPK) and the D locus. Our breeding dogs have CHIC numbers, and all of it can be looked up on the OFA site by registered name.
That depends on two genes, and we test both in every dog. One decides black or chocolate. The other decides whether that color shows at all or the dog is yellow. Two yellows can only produce yellow puppies, so all seven of Skip and Cotton's puppies are yellow. A black dog can carry yellow, chocolate, both or neither, and you cannot tell by looking. Tide carries yellow and does not carry chocolate, so he can sire blacks and yellows and never a chocolate puppy, no matter the dam. Praline is chocolate and does not carry yellow, so with Tide she had eight black puppies, which surprised a few people on our list and nobody who had read this page. Each litter page says what is possible for that pairing.
No. Those colors come from the dilute gene, written as a small d at the D locus. The AKC standard and the parent club recognize three colors: black, yellow and chocolate. Every dog in our house tests D/D, so none of them carry dilute and none of our puppies can be dilute or carry it. We mention it because people who know the breed ask, and because a D locus result is now part of a Labrador's CHIC number.
Drop us a line
Looking for the right
one to bring home?
We're a small program and we like it that way. Reach out and let's talk.