DNA markers and color - Page 1

Can a DNA test  be done on a dog to tell what true color it is? Say it is born black but then after a few years or in change of season gets some tan on back of the front legs or between the toes.Is there a way to tell if it is a balck or a bi besides just outer apperance?
~L~

The way it was explained to me in another thread, the dog is still black. Black and white are masking genes, and underneath the black or white blanket are the unseen true colors of the dog (sable or black and tan). So that bit of beige that you see on a black dog is its true color "bleeding thru," so to speak. Everyone I know who has a black dog with a little tan on its hocks/pasterns/toes has registered the dogs as black, because it was solid black as a puppy and does indeed have the black masking gene. As I understand it. And my grasp on genetics is tenuous at best.

VomMarischal- Thanks that helps to understand it a bit more. Now lets say a Sable is bred to a black and tan or maybe it would be considered a bi anyways ALL the pups were sable.The next litter the same ALL sable.Would that mean that the sire(the one that is sable) has the dominant(I think called heterozygous) gene over the bi/blk&tan?
~L~

Sorry--I'm no geneticist...I was merely quoting what another more knowledgeable person wrote. But I do know this: the odds of color are not per litter but per dog. Therefore every single puppy in an eight-puppy litter has the same chance to turn out black. So even though it would seem that two out of 8 puppies born to, for example, two sable dogs who each carry a black recessive, would be black because there's a 25% chance, in the real world all 8 could come out black or none of them at all. So what I mean is, you cannot necessarily tell for sure what a dog's recessive genes are just based on the pair of litters you describe, especially since sable is dominant over bi-color and black and tan. You still can't tell if your dog also has the gene for dilute or masking color unless you breed it to another dog with the the same factor. The more you try to figure this stuff out the more elusive it gets...and now there's evidence of partial color genes? Sheesh.

"at least partially"

That's funny because just when you think you have it worked out, some new and unexpected thing crops up, like a panda or black and silver or something! 

Thanks Vom Marischal and Pod,
I should have studied genetics more in school.Who knew I would be more interested in it now!!
~L~

~L~
I read this stuff over and over and it just doesn't click with me LOL
A friend of mine bought a solid black puppy a few weeks ago and now she has a few silver hairs here and there, especially in between her toes.
My Indi, whose parents are both true bi colors, all of a sudden now you can see all this light grayish hair underneath and even coming through some on her shoulder area... It's weird looking. I'll see if I can get a picture of it tomorrow. I was just wondering if she is still going to be considered a bi color... Sorry not trying to hijack your thread, guess we were just thinking the same about color lately...Though the way Indi acts, I don't care if she had purple hair LOL 

Stacy

This is a good site that has a chart that explains things in a easy to understand manner.
www.ehretgsd.com/genetics.htm#ColorBasics