New Color? - Page 6

Beautiful pup-very nice markings, but I still think just a darker blk/red with plenty of black-maybe a blanket-back instead of saddle.  Mother has a very light face and lighter marking (meaning, not so much black-not meaning weakness of pigment), which was fixed when breeding with the dark sable sire. Like I've said, the degree of lightness in those cheek spots and how he's got red around his ears and in them also make me think the way I do.
Ultimately, time shall tell, but I wouldn't be surprised if he is just a very nice darker blk/red.

Molly and Katjo74,

Thanks for all your help.  The only other breedings I ever did was with the Rookies mom, and she was a sable dominant.  So the only thing I ever had with her was sables,  but that is where my Rookie came from.. and I LOVE him to death.

It is hard for me to advertise him not knowing what color he will be.  I have thought he would probably be black/tan, but when this subject came up I thought it was the perfect time to get some input on them. The female pup went to a older man that wouldnt have cared if she was purple,  he fell in love with her sweet disposition and it was a match made in heaven..  I thought he might cry when he picked he took her home..  It was really sweet.

Thank again,

KIM

Bicolors are black/tans - so just advertise him as a dark black/tan.  I don't think he is a true bicolor anyway.

molly

There is no such thing as a "reverse " sable.  Unless the dog has agouti hair it is not a sable.

These are not new colors. Same as you have"off" colors on the hair coat there are "off" colors for the undercoat usually meaning one of two things. A. In a dog with a dark hair coat the undercoat is extremely light which results in bleed thru like above B. In a dog with a light hair coat the undercoat is very dark whihc also results in a bleed through and sometimes give the impression the dog was out sitting in a mud puddle.  In a normal coat the undercoat is a closely related shade of the outer hair and thus does not affect the perception of color.

Periodically dogs pop up that produce these "off" color undercoats. Primetime of Billo was one. Saw some funky looking combo's out of him.  Generally speaking they do not seem to persist in the breed ( probably because in the past someone was not quite so eager to promote it as rare and unusual and try to make a dime off it. It was considered what it was - an off color) 

Since the breeder seems to be wrongly stuck on cosmetic color breeding and there is the blue factor in the pedigree the most likely explanation is that this is an expression of the blue factor. Blues can often look like a faded black.

Cain it is generally useless to try to extrapolate color genetics from another breed since it varies greatly from breed to breed. The classic example in GSDs is the fact that black is a total recessive where as in most breeds it is dominant. So one can not assume the same color on two diffferent breeds means the same genetics.