Genetic color question - Page 1

So guys, this isn't German Shepherds, but I have a question about producing certain colors as far as genetics go.   I've had a couple of litters of Huskies in the past two years.  The sire is black and white.....the dam is grey/black and white with the only grey/black being on the top of her back, and on her head.  Having just a couple of litters they have not produced one solid black and white.  

 

Here is the sire, Max....  I don't have the pictures of his parents on here, but they are also both black and white.

 

 

Okay here is an old picture of Sierra. Out of coat, and not as filled out as she is now.  Her dad is a sable, and mom is grey/white, with grey going down on the sides. 

 

Now the question.  I've talked to the owner of Sierra's sister, who has produced black and whites. Why does Sierra not produce this though? Even though Max and his parents are all black and white?

 

Here are a few pictures of the offspring they have produced.

This is Buck who I kept,  he's more of a light sable

Here 

Here is Kiara, more of a dark sable. This and Buck's color have been the most common color of the two litters. She was not fully filled out in this picture either.  That is not solid black and white though, this wasn't the clearest picture in showing her coloring with the red undertones.

Here is Nukka who is in Michigan. She almost looks black and white in this picture, though she isn't what I would consider black and white like Max. She was a very dark grey/white as a puppy. She was the only one with this color though.

I can prodive colors of grand parents of Max/Sierra if needed, but any idea why this color hasn't been produced? I couldn't care less if they ever produce it, I just thought it was odd. Especially when Sierra has littermates who are either black and white....or have produced black and white. 

 

 

I don't think this dog can produce a black and white. And it seems the genes in her lines are not black and white. Or the females are lighter in color.
I had a black and white malamute male. I didn't breed this type of dog, but all the females I see in my area are lighter in color even though the male is dark . Is it a female thing?
Idk?
Maybe you have to have a very dark female as well to produce a dark black.
Now I bred a light colored america shepherd with a dark red and black bi color  and most of the litter was bi color and dark in color. I just think your female, even though she is being bred to a dark male is genetically giving her color to the puppies. That is just my guess. But for huskies in general, you  might want to ask someone who is into breeding them to get the best answer, good luck

After I read the question I called a friend of mine who has been raiseing Siberians for about 30 years and asked him the very question as you relayed it. He says that in the Siberian Breed the lighter of the two parents will generally dominate the darker coler in the off spring. But the puppies will never be lighter then the lightest of the two parents but can be darker. According to him if you use a dark sire and a light dame the colors will varry from the lightest to the medium of the two colors in betweem and will rarely ever get as dark as the darkest parent. According to his experience the female color will dominate in the puppies so if your trying to get darker puppies you will have to use a darker female. Hope this helped. Steve

 Thanks Steve, that did help. I guess I never thought about something in the past.....he had bred someones black/white Husky in the past and all five of her puppies were black and white. I just figured back then that was normal, since they were both black and white I didn't expect any other colors.   I'm repeating this litter again that we had last year, but I'm sure we'll see mostly sables again.

 

I've seen other breeders have a red/white bred to a black/white and they ended up with both colors of each, along with grey/whites and even white on occasion.  I guess with red and also black being very dark solid colors.....you could end up with anything.

Your welcome. If you look at the photos from the bitch to the bottom photo what my friend said seems to hold true. They all range from her color to the medium between her and the Black and white. Steve

Hi GSDGuy.  The colours of siberians do at first appear very different from other breeds and this is because of a particular gene mutation that occurs almost exclusively in the arctic breeds.  This is domino aka grizzle, and the effect is to lighten tan pigment to almost white, and also to reduce the amount of dark pigment.

The colour that you call black & white is in fact a lightened tanpoint, (a^t) as in black & tan in the GSD.  Your sables are the same as GSD sable, which is genetically wolf sable a^w.  I would suspect a grey & white is a darker version of sable.  As in the GSD and other breeds, modifying genes affect the amount of dark pigment covering the body and this gives the varying shades of darkness.

Max, being black & white, is homozygous a^t a^t, so cannot produce sable pups unless mated to a bitch lighter than himself (I hesitate to say 'a sable bitch' here as you have different names for the various shades of sable).

Sierra is a^w  sable but we can't be sure of the second allele based on only one litter.  If she is homozygous a^w a^w then she will not be capable of producing B&W whatever she's bred to.  It could be that she is a^w a^t (sable carrying B&W) and just pure chance that none of the pups inherited the a^t allele from her, which would have produced B&W (a^t a^t ).  Each pup born would have had a 50:50 chance of doing so, so it does seem likely that she doesn't carry, if this was a normal sized litter.

All the pups from your litter would be heterozygous a^w a^t, the varying shades are produced by different modifying genes that affect distribution of dark pigment.  Sierra's sister will also be heterozygous if she can produce B&W.  Just the luck of the draw that she inherited two different alleles from her parents and Sierra didn't (probably).

 pod that is very interesting. I may have to read over that a couple more times to fully understand lol. Very informative.  Now with Huskies they do have almost pure solid blacks, and they have agoutis. I've only seen pictures of the ones who were solid black....I say solid black as in they only had white on their feet and a little on their chest...the rest of the body was black completely....I know they did produce puppies very close in color to them, however I never saw pictures of the other dog in the breeding.  And then they have agoutis,  The site link I posted has some examples of agoutis. I've seen some who had a lot more coloring on their legs than these.

 

http://www.huskycolors.com/agouti.html

Ah, thanks for the link!  I remember that site from years ago and hadn't seen it in a longtime.  It's very interesting and gives a great insight into the Sibe colours.  The genetic evaluation was written some years ago and we do know a lot more now, through DNA alanysis, about the genes responsible for these colours.

The domino gene has the effect of lightening tan pigment and reducing the extent of dark (black or brown) pigment, so when domino is not present the colours are quite similar to the GSD.  For example, your agouti is wolf sable without domino, the same as a^w sable in the GSD.  White may be present on the chest, feet etc, but this is not the same as diluted tan in your B&Ws, this is where  pigment is completely missing, just as you get in any breed with white markings, though I must add that your B&Ws could also have white spotting (missing pigment) on feet chest etc. 

I would suspect that you can see a slight difference in shade between the diluted tan and white markings in newborn B&W puppies?

Your black & tans are the same as GSDs too, a^t without domino.  Modifying genes are responsible for the differing shades, and extent of black pigment.

Solid black is most likely dominant black, not the recessive type we have in GSDs.