Bicolor? - Page 8

I don't know what's meant by :"Bi-black", but he looks bicolor to me.  The black gene comes from the sire side, the bicolor from the damside. 

In my opinion this puppy is a bi-color and should be registered as such. However  based on what Molly is saying if the tarheels and toe penciling fade then the puppy is no longer considered a bi-color but is now considered  a melanistic black/tan. I'm not disagreeing with anyone but I think if a dog is apparently bi-color at birth and registered as bi-color fading of tarheels and toe penciling is a poor factor for renaming the coat pattern.

Normally by the time the puppy is registered (8 weeks or so) it is clearly a bicolor, or not - also you should be able to know if the pup is a bicolor by the genetics of the parents.  For instance, the dam of my puppy pictured in my post above is a very dark black/tan similar in color/markings to the puppy.  She is not a bicolor, though very close to it.  I did not expect her to produce bicolor puppies - knowing she carries a black recessive (had produced black puppies already and in this litter too) she would not also carry a bicolor recessive.  The sire being sable/black, there would be no chance of any of these puppies ending up bicolor.  On the other hand, if your puppy has a bicolor parent, or a parent known to produce bicolors, and the toe marks were very dark, clear and showed no sign of fading (normally bicolor puppies' toemarks and tarheels get darker and clearer even by 8 weeks, while non-bicolors start to fade by then even if they are not "gone") - and the non-bicolor puppies often have just a touch of brown on the ears already by then - bicolors remain black behind the ears - you can have a pretty clear idea what color to register the puppy by 8 weeks old.

molly

 Where did this "bi-black" thing come from? 

I really don't understand all this confusion about bicolors. Foreign-registered dogs will never be registered bicolor (or I should say SV, not foreign...not sure about the other registries) but AKC does have a bicolor designation. Unfortunately, people think the term means "2 colors" or is interchangeable w/black and tan, hence some of the confusion, and the rest can be chalked up to mix-ups between melanistic b&t and bi. 

I still don't see what carrying a black recessive has to do with calling the dog a different color.

Mystical, your dog is a bicolor. End of story.

I find my bicolors are born nearly black; I can see hints of tan on feet, but the only reliable sign is the vent, for several weeks. Then, I find they get darker- sometimes the penciling comes up and only bleeding between toes is evident by about 7-8mos. old. I was really surprised the first time I saw this, but Capri seems to produce this sometimes. The others are all patterned like her- chest stripe, though faint, no markings on face except for very faint "eyebrows" only visible certain times of the year. Heavy penciling and tarheels.

Molly, I bred my Gucci grand-daughter to Rony,  czech dog last 2 years FH Nationals tracking champion, got really nice pups,  had one that I thought would be all black,  but now at 5 months she has some red behind her ears,  red legs, no tar marks, but just absolutely beautiful,,great coat, but   I am unable to put a pic of her on here, but if you pm me your mail address, I will take a pic of her and send it to you,  just want to know what you think,  she does have a nice croup...so we will see. Lida

Christine

It seems to make a strong argument for bicolor being a seperate, distinct pattern that is recessive to the typical saddle pattern--not just a different interplay of the masking gene.

Pod, are you saying that it's not a different pattern, just a modification, like the difference between a black sable and a dark sable? It's not the black recessive--so it's got be something like the masking gene, yeah? But in that case, it's not a different pattern, just intensity.

Yes, I see the variation from darkest bicolour to lightest saddle as a line of continuous variation.  There's obviously an order of dominance from lightest to darkest and possibly some incomplete dominance of a^t over a, as there is in a^w over a to account for some of the darkening but basically there are modifying genes controlling the balance between dark and light pigment.

It's not specifically the 'masking gene' that has influence on this, more the modifiers that affect expression of mask.  Mask is on the MC1R, the E locus, and whilst this gene can influence extension of dark pigment, for instance an ee dog is white/cream with no dark pigment and an E (maskless) dog has less dark pigment than E^m, the patterns that we are currently discussing occur on dogs that are homozygous E^mE^m.  All this E^m allele determines is that the dog will have a mask, not how intense the mask will be.  It could be that there is some co-dominance again, an E^mE dog having less dark pigment that E^mE^m, but the vast majority of Shepherd are homozygous, so it is left to modifiers of the mask gene to determine the intensity of pigment.

Just a note on the DNA tests.  The colour gene tests commercially available so far are not breed specific.  These genes variations occur across many breeds.  There is though one exception to this that occurs in the GSD only so far; the 'panda' gene.

Here is a pup from my last litter. I would consider him a dark black and tan...
These pictures are from 6 weeks to 12 weeks old...

cutie!!!!  Yes, dark black/tan, toemarks already fading even in the first picture - he will probably become a very obvious black/tan (not close to bicolor) as he ages and the brown "spreads".

molly

Molly,
Please give your opinion on this boy? .He does have heavy penciling and tar heels...Not sure if that can be seen because of the grass...The black on this markings seem to be getting very deep and the area of black seems to be spreading as he gets older....He also seems to be loosing some of the tan on his chest and cheek....The black on his legs seems to be moving farther down to his paws....He does not have any tan or red around his ears or on his underbelly. It is all solid black..