question about a black puppy - Page 1

recently I received a black puppy in payment for a stud service by my sable showline male. The mother is solid black but from show lines, I am not sure exactly where the black came from originally (I did post about this breeding here sometime back). I took this puppy for a friend who is a trainer and wanted a black puppy for both show and work. Really the puppy is very nice with good structure, strong head and bone and excellent temperament. It is now 3 months old, although I do not own it I see him every day. I have experience with sables and know their coat colour changes a lot, in fact it gets quite light before the fluff is changed for the permanent coat. But I have no experience with blacks, in fact I have never seen a black gsd puppy before changing its puppy coat. Our concern is that this puppy seems to have very slightly lighter colour fur behind his ears, on the back of the neck and on the "stripes" that run down from the shoulder blades that most other gsds have, and this has become more obvious as he has grown bigger. Otherwise he is solid black. Are these slightly lighter marks normal in a black puppy? will his coat be solid back when he changes the puppy fluff? If not how will he turn out and why? I would be interested to hear from anyone with experience breeding black gsds.

Check his vent it should be solid blk, and no color should bleed thru at any time or else it is not a true blk.

I have a 5.5 month old black female, sire from the netherlands.  She was born completely black, and up to 4 months was still black.  she now has silver hairs throughout her britches, up her shoulder blades, and down the back of her neck from her ears to her shoulder blade.  the middle of her tail is also turning silver.
her sire is a black with red bleed thru and mom was a sable. 
my girl at 12 weeks with her littermates (sables and blk/reds, there were 2 blacks in the litter and so far the other is still black).


here's a 1/2 sister (same sire) at about the same age with the same coloring.  she is now over 2 and is darker, but still has the silver bleed thru, just not as prominent as when she was younger.

 WOW what a fantastic color. Can't wait to see her all grown up.

Uber Land - at the front thats exactly how the puppy in question looks, he does not have the lighter hair on the breeches or tummy or inside legs though, just the front part. The vent is black. So he probably will keep the lighter markings?. Any idea of the genetics behind this? Is it really a black?

Uber Land,
That black puppy is gorgeous!

Stacy

Wow, stunning puppy Uber.

That pup is beautiful,

I would think it to be a very-very-very dark sable....

was either the sire or dam sable?

what a beautiful pup

mom was a sable (medium sable),  but these were black pups up till 4-5 months old.  I've been around extreme black sables.  they still get the brown look as pups before getting darker.
around the vents are still black. and each of the pups has the silver all in the same areas.  and this is only happening to a few, some of the black siblings have stayed black.
they are going thru color changes just like black timber wolves do.  we are not sure about the genetics of this color, as the older female needs OFA's re-done since the first set were questionable.  and my girl is just a pup.  I am definitly curious about whether they will produce sables, that would confirm they are extreme sables.  but if they don't produce sables except when bred to a sable,  then they are something else.