Liver Puppy in PDB ad? - Page 3

 I must admit, one of the most beautiful gsds I ever saw was a blue one.  It was the color of a Russian blue cat and had blue eyes, too.  It belonged to a homeless person. 

I agree that those breeding for color, especially rare ones, are only going to open up a can of health-issues worms. 

I would have NO problem with training, trialing and titling a blue gsd, IF that was the one in the litter that I felt was the one with the temperament, drives, nerves and socialibility I require.   I like to think that I woudl pass, and just check a litter with the no "off colors" to find an equivalent.  But,  I am not a breeder, so why, really, should I care if the dog is unbreedable?   My biggest problem would be refraining from calling it blue...hopefully in a language other than English. Sinnya,  or Azure, anyone?

Blacks were fairly uncommon, until just the past several years.   Then, some excellent black working dogs started popping up (probably would have gone to pet homes in the past, but someone liked the drives as puppies?) and the race was on!!  After that, I'd say the past 7 or so years, more and more blacks popped up and people started breeding black to black.    I can't even remember whether there were 4 or more black gsds in the  2007 USA nationals, but at one time, there were none.  I think the last one I saw was in 1996 in Virginia.  Personally, I don't want a black gsd. I am afraid I'd call it "Juju Bwana" and trot down the trial field saying that during a blind search!!    NOT good!!!LOL

SchHBabe by pet I mean pet "quality" No breeding please. Anyone can still do sport/SAR/Policework or anything else with a blue/liver or purple puppy.

Breeding for the "acceptable" colors "Hopefully the breeder who is partial to blacks is breeding dogs that meet the standard in all areas and the black coloring is to them, the icing on the cake - not the whole goal.  Also, they have a way huge established gene pool made up of excellent dogs to pull the color from." Sue said it but I'll add, hopefully they are breeding 2 blacks that compliment eachother well ,as they would any other pair of GSD's.

This is a liver pup and the one in the advert does not look like this to me and the nose looks pink rather than brown.  In the pic of the litter together, I can see there are two that are not like the rest, but looks more like brown shading to the coat than liver.  I have seen this shading effect before and they end up normal black and tan.  I suppose you would have to see them in the flesh to be sure.

Margaret N-J

The blues and livers are associated with a dilution gene, that will dilute the pigment of the dog, and cause fading. It was thought white would do the same, but that's been proven untrue.

BTW, I don't see why people get so outraged over this. The owner of that webpage was collecting blue GSD's, not deliberately breeding them, though her female, Gypsy, did have an 'oops' litter, out of her very young male, which she mistakenly though was too young to be fertile.

She lost all her dogs 6 years ago, when they were accidentally poisoned, and has not owned one since. She gives no details of what happened, but since she mentions several times the tow yard she and her husband operate, it's possible they got into antifreeze or something similar.

The genetics is quite interesting. The blue and liver genes occupy different loci on the chromosomes. Both are recessive. The blue gene is a dilution gene which dilutes the black pigment, causing it to appear blue. The liver gene, as we've seen above, replaces the black pigment with brown pigment. In a pup with both the blue and liver genes, since there is no black pigment to dilute, the blue gene dilutes the brown pigment, producing a fawn colour.

Genetics page is here: http://www.bluedogs.8m.com/info.html  She also talks about why these dogs have been culled (killed) in the past, even though they are perfectly normal in every other way, and their normal coloured littermates will carry the same gene (masked, as a recessive.) Breeders not wanting prospective buyers know these pups may be carriers, will kill the off-colour pups.  The website owner says she is glad that more and more breeders are keeping the blue and liver pups, and selling them either without registration or on a spay/neuter contract.

Nia I have thought that about the really dark sables, (some call them black sables) as the all blacks.  It wasn't too long ago you didn't see a lot of them even working circles.  Of course you saw a lot of sables, but not the black sables, and now you see a lot of them.

Mystere, I know that site.  Haven't looked in long time, but there is a long list of dogs, including I think 1 that was in my old dog's pedigree.  Unfortunately, it now seems work has blocked out half the "pedigree" sites from view, so I can't find it here right now.

Here ya go: 

Found this site years ago.  Doesn't look like it has been kept all that current, but we backtrack on pedigrees all the time, so it could still be helpful.

http://www.geocities.com/sahiela2/index.html

http://www.geocities.com/sahiela2/index.html

Well,  I would say that the puppy in the ad is a chocolate and Red.     Instead of Black/ Red

I would consider the adult that  Kaffirdog showed, to be a liver and tan,  he has the pattern of a saddle.  really he is missing the black.    And the puppy that Kaffirdog showed I would consider a liver, with out seeing what the rest of the body looks like. 

To talk about color and genentics though. I can add a little. Many years ago I bred a black sable male to a black and tan female (GSD'S). They produced :

1 blk/tan
2 chocolates (solid)
1 liver and tan
1 rare liver sable :(golden under coat and liver tips. nose and nales liver in color. eyes golden)

Now , I did not personally set out to produce that, but obviously it happened. When it comes to genetics , we will never fully grasp the broad spectrum of genetic variation lurking in the past. Whether it be ressive or dominant the genes can decide to make all sorts of combinations, depending on genotype and phenotype. Then you start getting confused as to what really is a dominant trait or resesive. Colors and patterns can be completely seperated from one another. One does not necesarily dictate the other ever. Now, there are colors and patterns that are more often seen together. LIke a saddle is a pattern, but a black and red is the color. You can have a Sable with the pattern of a saddle. ( of different colors ), just as you can have a black and red Sable, with now pattern of a Saddle.

I personally find the panda's , liver's, blue's and any other color fascinating, looking at it from the standpoint of genetics. And who really knows but, Max von Stephanitz, what breeds were mixed with the Gsd's. It was 100 years ago the breed was started. Back in 1922 their is a photo of a brindle shepherd in GERMANY.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://members.atlantic.net/~vcristel/images/brshep.jpg&imgrefurl=http://members.atlantic.net/~vcristel/gsdbrindle.htm&h=357&w=473&sz=52&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=cGTalbqVbHZ_EM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbrindle%2Bshepherd%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den

Now, just think ! If Max had decided that he liked the brindle, you might all be fussing that the black and tan is not normal.

The creation of new breed color (or variation) is not really determined by humans , rather by genetics. Though, the human can decided to continue to try to replicate what nature throws at them. But, if you disagree with people doing that, then you have to disagree with every breed out there (including German Shepherds of any color). Even Max did not create Horand, rather he tried to replicate him and succeded. Max was not prejudice of what went into the dog as far as color goes, that is why all these variation pop up. He was focused on what the dog was as an individual, and what purpose he had in mind for the dog as a whole. Which was not just a police dog , but one that is as desirable to all human needs as possible , whether it be family, farm, police, Sar, utility, leading the blind, showing ect... For one breed to be so many things, not every puppy is intented to do only police work, or only showing .

Just my thoughts ! : )