color genetics - Page 1

What are the odds of 7 sables, one blk/tan out of a sable dam and a blk/tan sire?

Very good....

I bred a litter out of a sable dam and a blk/tan sire..... There were 8 puppies... 5 sables and 3 blk/tan

I expected to see more blk/tans. Is sable dominant?

Color genes dominance from strongest to weakest

Sable

Black/tan

Bi-color

Solid black

A sable would not produce another color unless it has a recessive gene other than sable, if you wish to we can go further on color genes

This is the first litter I am familar with out of a sable parent. I didn't realize it was the dominant color so was surpised to see the color results. I now understand how and why it happened. Thanks everyone....

Most litters I have seen in my lifetime with one Sable  and one Black/Gold parentage

(and oddly enough that does happen to be a majority of all the GSD litters I have seen;

different kennels, different lines, only my mentor did not keep or use Sables)  have had

mixed litters with variations in numbers.   From:  one sable in 4 pups,  to eight sables in

nine pups, and covering all ratios in between. 

Sadly it is too long ago to remember but the first bitch I was involved with used to throw

litters of 13 or 15 at a time - there were always Sable pups (like herself) but apart from

guessing at approx. half, I really can't recall exact numbers.  Well, I was only a teenager,

and not doing any paperwork on them !

Every litter of GSD's I've seen were either showlines out of blk/tan x blk/tan or sable x sable working lines.  I learn something new every day. This litter is sired by a blk/tan GSL x ASL sire out of a sable female, mostly WL's that go back to the Trommel dogs.

The only Show Kennel where I regularly had a great deal of contact was my late friend & mentor;

all her dogs were - at that stage of the 80s & 90s - potentially Show or pet stock.  While she did 

not dislike the grey dogs, she knew there wasn't a lot of point campaigning them @ UK Shows, in

those years;  ditto longcoats.   So none of hers were either.

Funnily enough the Sable bitch of my youth was 'show bred' (though not campaigned & originally

a not very well cared for pet);  she was partly Brittas lines, and looked every inch a  physically

'correct' GSD.  She was given a home & a job to do by people running a local haulage yard (after

she'd tried to bite some tormenting children), where she met a backyard bred B&G, unregistered,

oversized fella called Titch    (who I was exercising for the yard) and became the love of his life.

(AAaaaH!)

Most dogs I've been regularly involved with since that time - apart from my mentor's kennel - have 

been working dogs of one kind or another (Security, Police, etc),  though not many 'sport' dogs.

Hence they have been - and produced - a range of colours ...

The sable dam of this litter is an AKC OB dog with many advanced titles as is the sire. The litter was bred for GSD's with the potential to earn advanced OB titles and for therapy and service dogs. None will ever see the inside of a show ring.

Hey Blitzen!!  You know the bi colored girl I kept back? Her sire is a dark sable and her dam blk/red. Out of 7 pups Mni is bi and the rest were all varying shades of sable.