Very Dark Sable Puppies - Page 1

Does the undercoat show (one strand dark on tips/light on base closest to skin) on a possibly very dark sable pup as different color as early as 5 weeks? If not, at approximately what age can this be determined? Thank you for any answers in advance.

It should. I know puppies that were born looking black that turned out looking sable at three days old. I'll send you photos in a pm of them at birth, three days, a week, then a few weeks old.

Thank you for sending the pictures which helped me with my above question. It was very kind of you to send them. Your puppies are beautiful and very healthy!

They're not my puppies. I was interested in getting a puppy from this litter if it was repeated later, so the breeder sent me photos.

It's crazy that the whole litter looked black at birth but they were all sable. I bet they'll be very dark adults.

Srfwheat, I don't think I understand exactly what you're asking. Can you clarify?

 

 

The darkest sable puppies I have had, I could tell by 3 days old. It's possible, I could have been able to tell once they were dry if I had used a very good light. In fact, I just had a puppy born that I thought it was black until it was dry and then I went and got a LED flashlight--with the bright light, I could see the sable coming in on the pup's sides and a bit on her head. In the picture below, she's the puppy with her head over the other sable's back (all the other pups are bicolors). They're about 24 hours old in this pic.

 

Christine

If you pull hair back in a reverse direction on the back of an older puppy or grown dark sable GSD, his/her hair is lighter underneath than what we see when we look at the dog (ex. where the hair strand comes out of body is lighter than the tip of the same hair strand). When is this first noticeable in a very young puppy?

You have an healthy looking litter Christine.