Question about color... - Page 2

First dog black - second dog dark black/tan - the picture is a puppy - he'll get more tan as he matures, and lose more black on his legs - not bicolor unless he has black on toes, behind lower legs, and no tan at all on belly, behind ears.  .

molly

Thanks guys, I learned something about Bi colors. I thought possibly Baden could be bi when he was a pup. I have been thinking blk/red or tan. I saw a dog with more tan than him advertised as a Bi color, so I thought I'd ask some opinions. I agree I thought the fist dog is a black. I have heard some lighter hairs are often found on blacks down low. GARD is lucky. His black is solid so far. No question with her.

I have seen the Bi's with the stenciling on the feet. I guess this is the actual proof you need to call it a Bi. News to me. Glad to add that to my tiny brain fund.

Bastin v Kokeltal is registered as a  "schwarz-braun" and his son Bruiser here in Texas has striping up legs , pure bla ck face and a tuff of white on chest.....Bastin has two tiny marks over his eyes....and stripping on legs .

The Germans call all black/tan schwarz braun. When you see advertisement in the SV magazine they refere to a Bi/color sometimes as schwarz mit braunen stiefeln (black with brown boots). But it always reads in the pink papers as schwarz/braun regardle of the dog being black and tan (saddle) or bi-color.  

Yes, there is DNA testing now for the A locus patterns.... but interestingly, not  all of the patterns have yet been assigned separate alleles.  So far we have -

Ay - sable (this is not the 'sable' found in GSDs)

at - tanpoint

a - recessice black

In the GSD there seems to be continuous variation from solid black, through bicolour to pale saddle, without any set criteria to define one pattern against another.  It is possible that there is some co-dominance of the alleles, and the darkest bicolous are heterozygotes (at a) but it does seem likely that the at allele is responsible for a wide variation in the black & tan pattern, with these variations under the control of modifier genes.  The allele that is/was thought to give the wolf sable pattern (aw), which is the GSD 'sable,' has yet to be identified.  It could be that this is also a modified black & tan.

It has now been established that solid black is a separate allele but I don't know if any of these, identified by DNA, do have any tan hairs at all.  Wwould be interesting to know if anyone has had this test done?

Webpage of the lab doing the research - http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/agouti.html

GSD colour DNA testing - http://healthgene.com/canine/C128_german_shepherd.asp