Sable + Saddleback = Blacks and Bi-Colours? - Page 1

A friend of mine had a black'n'red female that had 9 puppies by a sable male last night. I got the email saying pups were blacks and bi-colours. I went on about my day, then realized the puppies' colours seemed contrary to what I would think they ought be.

The sire is a sable.
His parents are both sables.
His grand-parents: three out of four are known sables, the forth I don't know what colour it was.

The dam is a red saddleback.
Her parents are all saddlebacks.
Her grandparents are all saddlebacks.



I guess my biggest question is, am I missing something here? I would've expected all the pups would be sables.

Not an expert here, but my bicolor came from a black/tan mom and sable father. The father carried the black recessive and as far as I know did not come from a 'black' dog, but also sables..the female had black/tans in her background.

well, all of the black/red pups would appear bicolor at birth - they will lighten up.  I expect none will be bicolor, all will end up dark black/red since IF there are solid black puppies, that means the sable dad (and the mom) carry black - seems unlikely that either do with the color genetics you mention - but especially the female who sounds like a show-line coming from black/red showlines???

so, if there are indeed solid black puppies, then either she carries a dominant black gene - which would be highly unlikely with a very slim possibility - or the litter was sired by another male.  There are NO sables?  That's one big red flag.  The black puppies would be another.   But obviously they know who the mother is, so she must carry black - that is very strange indeed.

molly

I bred a black & red with a sable and got 1 all black & 3 bi-colors and 2 black & reds, no sables.
Luck of the draw!

that was Rollies litter:

Roland Glen Fingers Von Ryanhaus

I had bred two regular coats and got 8 regular coats in the first litter,
and then bred the same two together and got 4 long coats and 4 regular coats, the second time around......

now that was weird.....

Sounds possible.  I bred a sable with a black & tan, got sables, bi-colors, and black & tans.  If my dogs both carried for black then there could have been blacks in the mix, but they don't.  Surprised there wasn't at least 1 sable but that's how the genes were passed around.

A dog can look black/red and carry the black gene--you have to look through the pedigree to see what's back there--it's not common, but sometimes the saddle dogs do carry black.

And just to clarify, she can't carry the dominant black gene... or she'd *be* solid black.

Is it possible the "black" puppies are really sables just not correctly identified? If the female is br/black and the male was sable/black, then you'd potentially get pups who are sable/br, sable/black, br/black, and black/black.

You cannot breed a sable to a blk/tan(or blk/red, silver,cream, whatever) and get bicolors AND blacks. If you get blacks, then both parents carried black, therefore no bicolor. Most likely that the "bicolors" are not bicolor, but blk/tan. Mary ....hope I got all of that right:) Btw- I think bicolor is a genetically separate color, whether in itself, or due to a modifying tag.

I was assuming that the puppies (which are 1 day old now) will be blanket backs if they look like bicolors right now.

I haven't seen pictures yet. I guess there are actually two sables, and the rest appear to be blacks and bicolours. The gent doing this litter isn't a new to the breed. He's done both show and workinglines. I admit I take it at face value when he says bicolours he means that, and not saddles.

You cannot breed a sable to a blk/tan(or blk/red, silver,cream, whatever) and get bicolors AND blacks.

In lieu of Pod's recent post about the A-locus, why can't you get bicolours and blacks? If I've just asked something facepalm worthy, please forgive me. I'm pretty tired and have had a lot on my mind these past few days; which unfortunately leaves little spare room for thinking about anything else :(