So What Is a "Sable" GSD??? - Page 2

I agree that dog certainly is a sable, and a bell should go off in your head when you see the breeding, I know of not one dog from Arlett that would be faded to that degree.
Plus, look at how many sables are in the siblings, and the pronounced color, in the other dogs.
I believe there are a lot of dogs that are in deed sables that others think are "just faded out".

She's a sable dog. Yes, she does look a lot like some faded out black-tans. Her father is a well-known sable dog from a kennel known for its sable show-line dogs--you can see that many of his kids are sable. Too bad we don't have pics of her kids to help provide further evidence.

Do a google image search on her name....

She looks a lot more sable here, doesn't she?
http://www.csvclub.org/servlet/Node?node=53271&status=0&language=1

http://www.csvclub.org/servlet/Node?node=53661&status=0&language=1

Now that's a nice looking sable female!

Okay, got my act together here, and snapped a current photo. It was the best I could do without someone else to help me stack her.

Not much different from the dog in the photo, no?

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a344/Sunsilver/Starfadedpigment.jpg

That dog the OP is referring to is definitely a sable, Red sable as often called. A few of the members I trust as far as colors and patterns are concerned are BlackThornGSD, Eichenluft and Darylheret.
Here are some of my observations on GSD colors, they are not rules, but rather personal observations. Our purebred GSDs community is rather a small one and that is why I could come up with these observations.
Saddle is a pattern not a color, there are small, medium or big saddles, there are also light and dark saddles. Here we call the color of the shorter coat the base color and that of the longer hair the covering color. A well pigmented coat is one that has dark base color on the back &  dark color on its parts with minimum fur, colors from weak to stronger being: cream, light grey, medium grey, orange, red/brownish, darker red/brownish.
If a black tan GSD has a lighter saddle but base color is strong it is not considered a faded color and can be corrected with mating to a partner of a long history of strong colored saddle. If the base color is light a GSD is considered of weak coat pigment.
If you take some of the black hairs from a black tan GSD's back and look closely at them they're closer to very dark blue rather than pure black. Most black tan GSDs have orange to red base color of the inner coat, sometimes grey or cream, but mostly reddish.
Bicolors usually have grey base color of undercoat of various degrees usually darker than lighter. If you take some of the black hairs from the back of a bi color and look closely at them they are closer to charcoal than pure black.
If you do the same with a solid black GSD, you will see that some are charcoal, others dark blue and fewer pure black.

Sables

I always thought that a sable has several colors on the same one hair, but that is not true, Sables have varying degrees of same color on the longer hair but never several colors on same one hair, but some other adjacent hairs might have varying degrees of another color, that gives a look of bands/strips. The base color of the undercoat is one and homogenous. In red sables it is usually orange. The richer the longer coat the darker would the saddle appear, and the more it would look like a saddled black tan.
If the base color of the undercoat is grey the overall appearance of the Sable GSD would be grey. When a sable has the black recessive gene the darker grey the base color would be and the darker is the longer coat, many time the dog would look almost solid black if you don't look closely at the legs.
When a sable is homozygous the variation in the shade degrees of the longer hairs is greater and the base color is lighter which gives an odd look of the coat just like someone who didn't comb his hair in the morning.
When you have a sable which is the product of a black tan and a sable, the more distinct the pattern and saddle it'll have, going on like this for few more generations it'll look more like a black tan rather than a sable, to evaluate the coat color look at the base color not the covering one. To evaluate the overall pigment look at gums, nails and mask.

Ibrahim

I honestly don't think that your faded dog looks anything like the sable bitch, Sunsilver

One difference to note is that the faded saddles mean that not only are the areas of pigment lighter, but the areas of pigment are smaller. So the sable girl has grey (thinly distributed black) over her back all the way over her loins all the way to her tail. But the faded saddle has darker pigment over a much smaller area--it's ghosted out. Note also that the sables mostly have the same amount of pigment over the whole saddle area. But the faded saddles have lighter areas over the topline and sides and often creeping up the ribcage (going back to Uran!).

Christine

Here's a beautifully dark American sable
http://50.6.183.234/GSDReviewed/cbitches/CastlehillTuffCookie.jpg

Here's a saddled sable (Also American)

I've just been looking at the pedigrees of the 3 Iceman offspring shown in the post from GSDLoverGirl 

Margaret N-J

Nah Sun I have to agree your dog doesn't look like that sable girl at all.

GSDlover I'm afraid I don't understand you--you're from Germany and the showlines are the main dogs the SV is promoting but you act is if they are a plague and you never see them. I get up every morning and stare into the eyes of 2 black sables every day but that only makes them GSDs not the norm or anything special or different. I think you are sort of on a witch hunt here. It started with the non existent brindles, then on to dominant blacks, which don't exisr and now you are onto sables.To know as much as you claim you do you sure seem lost...................

Ibrahim again you are on the homozygous sables of which you have not a clue. You made false info confusing before and you haven't stopped here. A homoz sable has a coat color and texture like any other GSD--if it has a different texture it has nothing to do with it being homzygous. I have told you before, I have one and I know what I am talking about. If you saw him you would think he is just a big stocky german lined sable GSD--you couldn't point at him and say oh he only throws sables. If you would like to look at him he is on here as Auggie vom Texomaland. Now go look at him and tell me how he is so different. Then look at his progengy, Marybeck's Iron Man, his grandson Marybeck's Supersonic and tell me how their pigment resembles a black and tan dog. Because they don't. Iron Man aka Issac is the product of him and a blk/tan bitch. Supersonic aka Scooby is a product of him and a black girl. Voo his daughter is a solid black. DeJa her daughter is a solid black. I have  5 generations here. That kind of blows a big hole in your theory doesn't it? Please get your facts straight. BTW I don't need DNA--I know what was bred to what. Voo has a dark sable littermate that damn sure doesn't have any blk/tan looks to her.

I don't mean to sound like a wise azz here but I hate it when people get on here and spout things they have no clue about...................