Genetics Question: hyper-melanism in dogs - Page 1

I have a neighbor who used to breed rotties. In one of the litters 4 out of the 10 pups were solid black. I'd never seen all-black rotties, though I have heard they exist. The pups were obviously rotties, and looked identical in form to their littermates, with the exception of being jet black.

I am wondering if anyone knows the conditions behind hyper melanism: is it a recessive, or is it a modifier that is intermittantly expressed, seemingly "at random"?

Another question: to anyone's knowledge has this ever happened with GSDs? -- to produce solid black pups from bi-colour parents?

http://www.ehretgsd.com/GSDcolorGenes.pdf

check few pages back there is few discussion regarding color genetics. Good luck.

I've seen the solid black rotts. never had one though.  I had a bitch that was what I considered dirty marked.  she had a tons of black that bled into her rust markings,  you could see very little rust on her any where.   She had the tar markings on her legs and feet just like a really dark bi-color gsd.  she only produced 1 or 2 pups a litter who weren't clear marked.  She was out of strong canadian and old german lines.  not sure if this would be the same trait as the soldi blacks.  I have also heard of the solid blacks occuring in blk/tan daschunds.

If both bicolor parents carry the solid black recessive there will likely be some solid black puppies. If only one bi-color carries the solid black gene, there will only be bi-colors but some of those puppies will carry the solid black recessive.

Michele and Pharaoh