# Litter colours question



## dazzybee (Dec 21, 2014)

Is there a science to the likelyhood of certain colours,

For Example

If I had a bitch that was black with a white chest & she bred with a beige coloured dog and for arguments sake there had a litter of 10, would statistics say 5 would be black & 5 beige.

Could they all be black or all be beige or some wired 3rd colour.

Thanks


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## Sleeping_Lion (Mar 19, 2009)

Oh by crikey, it's much more complicated than that, it depends on what they carry as well. So if both dogs carry a colour but neither are that colour, they can still produce it. But if, for argument's sake, you had a yellow bitch, and a black dog that didn't carry yellow, then all the pups would be black.


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## Crystal butterfly (Nov 2, 2014)

its all down to genetics any colors they carry from parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc. could pop up.

I had an accidental breeding with my 2 rabbits years and years ago one was white and grey and the other brown and white only 1 of the 5 babies was brown and white the other 4 were completely different colors to the parents.

if for example I bred a solid black bitch with a solid black dog both dogs only having solid black lines no other colors in their last 5 generations then id expect all solid black puppies as this would be the only color gene in both parents (I think I'm right when I say that) 

if you are planning breeding your dog please do the necessary health checks and genetic checks done at the vets especially if you don't know anything about either dogs genetic history. Its important this is done as health problems that may not appear in your dog may be passed on to the puppies. Do your research and do it responsibly not for a bit of money in your pocket (I call this blood money sorry) or just because you think your dog needs to have 1 litter before shes spayed. Also home check possible homes. my mum used to have a 'if ever you have to re home this kitten/cat it must come back to me' when she bred/showed birman cats which was in my opinion very responsible (she used to refund half there money if ever a situation like this happened so she never expected to get them back for free)


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## catz4m8z (Aug 27, 2008)

Its much easier to tell with pedigree dogs where you can trace the generations back as you know what colours they are likely to be carrying.
Mongrels are more of a surprise!

My friends black tortie moggie had a litter from a local tom (or two!) and it resulted in a litter of all black and white kittens...and my Gracie, a beautiful fluffy lilac tortie! She was a surprise!!LOL


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## Firedog (Oct 19, 2011)

I would say it also depends on whether it was two dogs of the same breed. I understand that some dogs when crossed with another will always throw brindle even though they aren't that colour.


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## Rafa (Jun 18, 2012)

If the background of the two dogs is unknown, then they could have a variety of colours in their genes and pass them on to the pups.

Are you planning to breed from the two dogs you describe?


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

Moved this to dog breeding as a more appropriate place.
There is most definitely a science involved in the colours you would get - it's called genetics and can be very complicated.


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## labradrk (Dec 10, 2012)

MerlinsMum would be the person to ask. Hope she sees this!


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## MerlinsMum (Aug 2, 2009)

labradrk said:


> MerlinsMum would be the person to ask. Hope she sees this!


You whistled? :lol:

Dog colour genetics is, indeed, very complicated. it's nowhere near as easy to understand as, say cats or mice because dog breeds have been kept as isolated breeds for a long period of time, and certain genes can be found in some breeds but not others.

But it's also a very exciting thing to be interested in at the moment, as top geneticists are unravelling dog colours at a molecular level via DNA. We understand a LOT more about colours in some breeds than we did, say, even a year ago.

This site is by one of the geneticists who's been working on these studies herself, so it represents cutting-edge knowledge - The last update was only a few days ago, regarding a recent breakthrough in Miniature Schnauzer genotypes.

Dr. Sheila Schmutz Dog Coat Color Genetics

This website may be easier to understand for the novice; much of the data is taken from the above site, but presented in a more accessible format -

Dog Coat Colour Genetics

Anyway - these are the two best dog colour genetics websites on the internet, so maybe that will get you started learning!


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## dexter (Nov 29, 2008)

rough collie colour chart
Inheritance Chart Collie Colours


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## lostbear (May 29, 2013)

Firedog said:


> I would say it also depends on whether it was two dogs of the same breed. I understand that *some dogs when crossed with another will always throw brindle even though they aren't that colour*.


That's interesting. I didn't know that.


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## lostbear (May 29, 2013)

Why does science always make my brain hurt?


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## MerlinsMum (Aug 2, 2009)

Firedog said:


> I would say it also depends on whether it was two dogs of the same breed. I understand that some dogs when crossed with another will always throw brindle even though they aren't that colour.


Now, that depends.... 
A lot of breeds are able to hide brindle genes, either because they have another gene/s which masks brindle, or because of the way the K gene works, which Brindle is connected with.

This is where is does get complicated as there are some breeds who don't have the K gene - and others which do, but other genes mask brindle. For instance, you could breed Golden Retrievers together for 50 generations and never get anything but Golden puppies, yet they may well carry brindle, which can't be expressed because they are all homozygous for ee [recessive red], which suppresses any formation of black pigment.

(I did say it was complicated!!!)


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## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

An easy way to think of it is that some colours are recessive and some dominant. To put it simply all dogs have 2 colour genes which might be the same or different. To get a recessive colour both dog and bitch need to have that colour gene but not necessarily be that colour and the recessive gene from each parent has to be passed on to that puppy to produce the colour. A dominant gene colour only has to have one gene of that colour passed on.

eg. Border collies, black is dominant, red is recessive. So if a puppy inherits one black gene and one red gene it will be black but if it inherits 2 red genes it will be red. The black puppy still has a red gene so if then mated to a dog that carries the red gene it can still produce a red puppy. So as you can see you could have a recessive colour pop up several generations on from any known reds in the pedigree.

It can get more scientific than that but that gives a basic idea of how it works.


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## Freyja (Jun 28, 2008)

You need to look way back in a dogs pedigree to see what colours are there. I mated a fawn brindle dog to a fawn brindle bitch now brindle and black are dominant colours in whippets fawn and blue are the recessive colours. It was a repeat mating and all previous pups had been various shades of brindle.

We knew dad could possibly carry fawn he had a fawn brother and a fawn dad the only fawn in his pedigree. We assumed he didn't carry fawn but he obviously did because on the repeat mating these 2 were born.



When we looked back at the bitches pedigree there was a fawn dog there but you had to go back either 7/8 generations to find him. Even her breeder was surprised when I told her we had fawn pups.

My current bitch has a black mother and a brindle father so depending on what colour dog I use if I ever breed her god only knows what colour pups I will get. I could get literally any colour she has fawn about 5 generations back on her sires side and ber mother was black so literally anything goes with her.


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## Oenoke (Oct 17, 2009)

It depends on what breed they are and what you mean by beige, I would say the beige is a recessive gene, so would depend whether the black carries this recessive gene, you could get a whole litter of black puppies, but then both could have the recessive brown, so you could get a mix of black and brown or the black dog could have the 'beige' gene and you could get a mix with that in too. Then there's the dilute gene, so you could get blue (and recessive brown) if they both carry this. But even if you put 2 black dogs together that are known to carry a recessive brown gene, you may not get any brown puppies, each puppy has a 25% chance of being brown. I bred a merle dog to my blue bitch and didn't have any merle puppies (each puppy had a 50% chance of being merle) the same way as I had all girls, they did do the statistics for blue and lilac though and I had 3 blue puppies and 1 lilac (the chance of each puppy being lilac was 25%).


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## dexter (Nov 29, 2008)

I once saw a rough collie (sable) x Samoyed litter and the pups were black and white ( looke d like bc pups) the reason is I was told that sams were originally black ???


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## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

dexter said:


> I once saw a rough collie (sable) x Samoyed litter and the pups were black and white ( looke d like bc pups) the reason is I was told that sams were originally black ???


I have seen black and white samoyed crosses too, very attractive but look very odd as they looked like samoyed. I think they were possibly border collie crosses though which would make it more likely.


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