So What Is a "Sable" GSD??? - Page 1

Yeah it's me again.

So I am curious. I was looking through pedigrees and was informed what looks like to me a poorly marked black & tan was a sable [I myself own a VEO or Eastern European Shepherd].

As it is though I just returned from europe so my mind is used to DDR, Czech and working line sables... richly pigmented animals. Even the so-called "silver sable" my Australian friend owned looked more like a sable than the dog in question.

Europe of course has different ideas to americans and british.....


So I was wondering if people would be generous enough to tell me what their idea of a sable GSD is.

 

Do you have a pic of this dog please?  I won't attempt to describe a sable myself, I always feel like I am trying to explain pink to a blind man, but I've read some detailed descriptions on here that may help.

Margaret N-J

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/dog.html?id=612370

Margaret this is the dog she is referring to.
GSDLover there are showline sables and working/ddr sables. That girl in the above pedigree is a showline sable. A sable is a sable is a sable.

Thanks vonissk

Definitely a sable, though I did once have a faded black/red bitch that looked like that.

Margaret N-J

I think the Americans and Europe are more in sync with the breed and Brittish and Aussies have more in common....lol

A faded black and tan is very difficult to tell apart from a faded sable.

I know, because I own a faded b&t. 

The faded pigment doesn't show up anywhere else in her pedigree except way, way back, so I't obviously recessive.

Hate to disagree Margaret but I'd say the one on the link is a very colour-paled
black & gold 'saddle', and not a sable.  [ Thanks, Vonissk - an  'Am.showline
sable' ?  - what, you mean that's somethingh else that's been reinvented to suit ?]
I'm with Sunsilver on this one.

We used to have a bitch who was a very pale, creamy sable, (out of a more 'normal'
silver sable coloured mother), who was quite like this one in tone,  but a lot more
obviously sable in pattern than this one is.  She had lightish eyes and nail/nose
pigment, too.  Nice enough dog but I really didn't warm to her colouring, she was
the lightest sable I ever knew.

Gustav - what on earth does that mean ?

The dog is the link is a sable--look at her father and his kennel if you're in doubt. She's not even all that faded. She's just not got the black recessive or heavy melanizing genes (although she does have a very nice mask).

I disagree. My faded b&t looks almost exactly like that. I don't have a good recent picture of her to prove it (and likely wouldn't be able to post one if I did). The clincher is the common ancestry: my bitch is an Ursus grand-daughter, and this female is line-bred on Ursus. Someone told me it's not uncommon for Ursus lines to produce faded females.

Okay, here's a link to the best picture I have of my bitch. There's one posted on the database of her at just over a year, but she wasn't nearly as faded then, and you can still see she's definitely a saddleback in that one.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a344/Sunsilver/Sundridge/IMG_1748cropped.jpg

@ Gustav what exactly are you trying to say? I think the Americans and Europe are more in sync with the breed and Brittish and Aussies have more in common....lol.

High line german GSDs and American / British show dogs are really only comparable. Given as high lines are a horror in my mind, they are no where near what the breed should be, I don't even consider them as GSDs anymore. I'm German born so I am biased you could say.




As for the dog http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/dog.html?id=612370
 

That doesn't look anything like a sable, either show or work line. It's a poorly marked black & tan... the only way you could 'claim' sable is the blackish marking to the upper ruff of the shoulders and neck but outside of that... no.

These two, half siblings, are more to me sable

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/dog.html?id=652964


http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/dog.html?id=594973

After all sable is "agouti" and as such the hairs should be banded... so is she really banded or is it just the "fade" factor that gives her the look of such?

 There's also no distinctive "sable" to the face as per this old info
http://www.aboutgermanshepherddog.com/german-shepherd-colors-coat-patterns.... even a "faded sable" is supposed to keep eumelanin around the ears, forehead and eyes she only has a mask.

And this website has photos
http://vonbauffin.webs.com/GSD%20Information.htm
Considered a black and tan as per the above website

Silver sable - more eumelanin in the face than the dog of question above.

Regular sable


I don't mean to cause conflict but as a German born person who can go out my backdoor while back home and see proper GSDs - as they were before the 1960s when you ended up with high lines showing "roach back" and severe angulation in stacked photos [as if that's attractive] and which has become the "norm" as somewhere along the line judges viewed this as proper and the breeding standards slipped - I have trouble with "show dogs".