# How Does Color Genetics Work?



## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Hi All,

lol my title is a bit broad - and I have read everything I can find on the subject yet somehow can't find the answer to my question.

My breeder has told me that my future puppy will be black - which is awesome, because I was looking for a black. When I was looking on her website, I saw that the puppies from the litter could be black or brown - and I wrote her to say that although I had put "Black" on my application, I was actually fine with black or brown or really any of the black,blue, brown, silver shades. I was only trying to avoid white or cream, really, because my last beloved dog, Minnie, was white. Needed a complete change for this new little pup in my life.

She wrote back and said definitely this litter is all black. Sire does not carry the fading gene.

When I visited last week, I noticed in the outdoor light (first visit was inside) that the puppies' dam appears to be a dark silver or blue color. She is very beautiful, so if my puppy were that color, I would be fine with it. I love love love black, and will be thrilled if my puppy is a true deep black as expected - but I am also fine with blue or silver if that is what happens.

So, my question is: my breeder seems certain that the puppies will only be black. I understand about the sire having no fading gene - and I was wondering if the dam carries the fading gene, is it still only possible to have all black (or brown, because the sire does carry brown)? In other words, is it only the sire's genetic heritage that matters or only that black is so dominant? Or is there a chance that my puppy might actually clear to blue later?

Hope someone knows the answer to this! Here is a photo of the dam.


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## Chagall's mom (Jan 9, 2010)

I'm clueless! You probably already saw this link while doing your research.
https://www.vetgen.com/chromagene-coat-color2.html 
I'm just replying to bump your thread so someone knowledgeable sees it and replies!


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

I believe I know who the breeder is. Is the sire Reilly? Who is the dam? I can't tell on my phone if she is blue or faded black. There's a few reasons I can think of as to how she knows that the puppies would be black.


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Thanks Chagall's Mom, that chart is interesting (I hadn't found it yet).

CharismaticMillie, I do think the breeder knows exactly what she is talking about -- she is very experienced and very highly regarded and she has been fantastic about answering my questions.

My question isn't because I doubt my breeder's judgement but just that I wonder how the color genetics work.


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

nifty said:


> Thanks Chagall's Mom, that chart is interesting (I hadn't found it yet).
> 
> CharismaticMillie, I do think the breeder knows exactly what she is talking about -- she is very experienced and very highly regarded and she has been fantastic about answering my questions.
> 
> My question isn't because I doubt my breeder's judgement but just that I wonder how the color genetics work.


I also believe the breeder knows what she is talking about.  My questions I asked would help me explain it to you.


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

LOL oops forgot to answer! Yes, the sire is Reilly and the dam's name is Jewel.


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

Thanks!

Okay, so, the dilute gene aspect of color genetics is not fully understood yet and there is no testing available for identifying the gene(s) involved. Breeders rely their knowledge of what is in the pedigree and what has been produced. 

Reilly is black and has no blue or silver dogs in his pedigree, so you wouldn't expect him to carry dilute. He has been bred enough times at this point for that to have been proven true.

Now, Jewel is either blue or faded out black, it's difficult for me to tell. I will say that her aunt is a blue who honeymooned at my house a couple years ago!  Your breeder has bred to Reilly quite a few times, so my best guess is that Jewel is either faded black or she knows well enough from breeding her other bitches with similar pedigrees that they will produce black when bred to him. Or she may have bred her to a black not carrying dilute in the past. Fading, though, or grizzling, is always a possibility in a black.

In my litter, I got some puppies that looked blue at 8-10 weeks, which was a little bit of a surprise as everybody in the pedigree is reg. as black or white. I was actually talking about it with your breeder and she actually wasn't surprised based on the pedigree. . Blues are often accidentally (or purposefully) registered as black, so this makes pedigree research on paper alone a little unreliable.

If your puppy doesn't have any browning to the face or a blue face, likely will be black.


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Thanks, CharismaticMillie! This is really interesting - how cool that you and my breeder know each other! This is Jewel's first litter and she is about 4 yrs old. I think she is just beautiful (as is Reilly) so whatever her color - and whatever the color my puppy is - I am going to be in love!


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

I don't know the breeder or anything about this litter. But my understanding of how color genetics works is this. First, although people refer to a "fading gene" this gene has not been found, so there is no DNA test for it. At this point it is still a theory. But the theory is that if a puppy that is born black inherits 2 fading genes, one from each parent, then he will be silver. If he inherits one fading gene from one parent, and a non-fading gene from the other, then he will be blue. If he inherits 2 non-fading genes, he will be black. Black parents can only contribute non-fading genes and silver parents can only contribute fading genes. Blue parents might contribute either a fading gene or a non-fading gene. So if you breed a black dam to a black sire, any puppy born black will stay black. But if you breed black to blue, then the blue parent can contribute either a fading gene or a non fading gene, and the black parent can only contribute a non-fading gene. So you would expect that of the pups born black, some will clear to blue as adults and some will stay black.

From the picture, it looks like the dam is blue. But it sounds like CM and others may have additional information to suggest that she is really black? [see PS below]

By the way, two black dogs (or a black and a blue) can produce cream or white if they both carry the gene for cream/white. There is a DNA test for that gene available from vetgen -- see the link that Chagal's Mom provided. The breeder may well have tested the parents for the cream/white gene and found that one or both does not carry it. If that is the case, then the breeder could be certain that there will be no cream or white (or apricot or red) pups.

PS I wrote this before I saw CM's post #7 above. Thanks to CM for the additional info in that post!


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Thank you, peppersb! Very interesting indeed!


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

Dilutes are tricky. Jewel is registered as a black, and the line between a heavily grayed or faded black and blue can be fuzzy.


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

The other thing is that it might just be that she is covered in dust because she and the puppies were playing outside when I arrived - and as the puppies climbed over me, I was soon covered in dust too! I have an earlier picture of Jewel from the earlier visit (taken indoors) and she certainly looks like all black (and so beautiful!) in that picture! I don't know how to add it to this reply box


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## Quossum (Mar 18, 2011)

This is one of my favorite sites on dog color genetics:

Dog Coat Colour Genetics

Another interesting one:

https://www.dogenes.com/poodle/pdlcolor.html

I'm fascinated with color studies, too!

--Q


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Sorry to intrude upon your thread, but I would love to hear what people think of a good black ( who is from a black -apricot breeding) x an apricot. That is what my Timi is a product of. I asked my breeder if the apricot had a fading gene that would turn Timi blue, and she said no, she will stay black. But, I am seeing the tell tale brownish tinge on the outer edges of Timi's puppy coat, so does that mean that she will definitely blue?


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

Tiny Poodles said:


> Sorry to intrude upon your thread, but I would love to hear what people think of a good black ( who is from a black -apricot breeding) x an apricot. That is what my Timi is a product of. I asked my breeder if the apricot had a fading gene that would turn Timi blue, and she said no, she will stay black. But, I am seeing the tell tale brownish tinge on the outer edges of Timi's puppy coat, so does that mean that she will definitely blue?
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Don't worry! Puppy coat sunburns easily and gets a reddish/brownish tinge on the ends. I wouldn't take it to mean that she is blue if the breeder otherwise thought she was black.


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## poodlecrazy#1 (Jul 2, 2013)

I agree with CM. When Branna was a puppy she got the same red tint to her coat. It was just the sun bleaching it out a bit. She is still a nice inky black even when I shave her with a 40. Although she is getting a lot of white hairs now. I guess that means she is a "bad black". Her mom is the same way nice and inky black but has a lot of white hairs here and there. 


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

Tiny Poodles said:


> Sorry to intrude upon your thread, but I would love to hear what people think of a good black ( who is from a black -apricot breeding) x an apricot. That is what my Timi is a product of. I asked my breeder if the apricot had a fading gene that would turn Timi blue, and she said no, she will stay black. But, I am seeing the tell tale brownish tinge on the outer edges of Timi's puppy coat, so does that mean that she will definitely blue?


My understanding of the genetics is that the apricot color (or red or cream or white) hides what is going on with regard to the fading gene that affects black or brown dogs. So genetically, if you want to know if Timi carries a fading gene, you have to look to the black, blue or silver dogs in her pedigree. If they are all black, then she will not fade. But as has been noted, some blue dogs are registered black (that may be because some blues may not start to clear until after they are registered). So you need to know if they are really genetically black. You can look at a color pedigree on Poodle Pedigree. See if you can trace Timi's apricot parent back to blacks. Or are there some blues and/or silvers? Do the same for Timi's apricot grandparent. Since the breeder said that she would stay black, my guess is that the breeder knows that there are blacks behind the apricot parent and grandparent.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

peppersb said:


> My understanding of the genetics is that the apricot color (or red or cream or white) hides what is going on with regard to the fading gene that affects black or brown dogs. So genetically, if you want to know if Timi carries a fading gene, you have to look to the black, blue or silver dogs in her pedigree. If they are all black, then she will not fade. But as has been noted, some blue dogs are registered black (that may be because some blues may not start to clear until after they are registered). So you need to know if they are really genetically black. You can look at a color pedigree on Poodle Pedigree. See if you can trace Timi's apricot parent back to blacks. Or are there some blues and/or silvers? Do the same for Timi's apricot grandparent. Since the breeder said that she would stay black, my guess is that the breeder knows that there are blacks behind the apricot parent and grandparent.



As far back as I could trace Timi's sire, the pedigree is all red and apricot. Timi's mother I saw, and she is a good black - as black as Timi, except for just a few grey hairs on the muzzle, and not many of those, so I assume that I don't need to know more then that, because if she does not have the fading gene, she probably can't carry it and pass it to Timi ( she is half Mexican, so that side isn't on poodle pedigree, so I don't know that part of the lineage). 
I just figured that with so many shades of red, apricot, and cream, there must be a fading gene in there, but you are saying that there is not? If there isn't, then I guess that Timi will stay black!


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

Tiny Poodles said:


> As far back as I could trace Timi's sire, the pedigree is all red and apricot. Timi's mother I saw, and she is a good black - as black as Timi, except for just a few grey hairs on the muzzle, and not many of those, so I assume that I don't need to know more then that, because if she does not have the fading gene, she probably can't carry it and pass it to Timi ( she is half Mexican, so that side isn't on poodle pedigree, so I don't know that part of the lineage).
> I just figured that with so many shades of red, apricot, and cream, there must be a fading gene in there, but you are saying that there is not? If there isn't, then I guess that Timi will stay black!
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Yes, white/cream/apricot/red can carry and be affected by whatever genes cause fading and/or dilute colors.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

CharismaticMillie said:


> Yes, white/cream/apricot/red can carry and be affected by whatever genes cause fading and/or dilute colors.



Well then, Timi very well could end up blue! Although I will say that my breeder's apricots tend to have that rare trait of getting darker as they get older. Yet, she does get all different shades usually cream and apricots in the same litter, so there must be fading genes at play...


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

Tiny Poodles said:


> I just figured that with so many shades of red, apricot, and cream, there must be a fading gene in there, but you are saying that there is not? If there isn't, then I guess that Timi will stay black!


My understanding is that the fading that takes place in puppies that are born black is genetically different (caused by a different gene) than the fading that occurs in red, apricot, cream and white poodles. So in a poodle that is red, apricot, cream or white, the genetics that would otherwise cause the poodle to be black, blue or silver (or shades of brown) is hidden. But the underlying genetics are passed on to offspring. So for example, if a cream dog has two silver parents (yes, that is possible), then you would not see any effect of the fading gene in the cream dog, but any of the cream dog's offspring who are born black would have the fading gene.

With regard to your situation with Timi's sire having a pedigree that is all red and apricot, that just means it is hard to tell if he is carrying the gene that will cause a puppy that is born black to fade. The best way to tell would be to look at other offspring that he has sired. Have other puppies that were born black faded? Or have other puppies that his parents had faded?

I am not an expert on this, but that is my understanding of how the genetics works. 

BTW, if you are interested in color genetics, Zyrcona has posted some really good info on this forum. You could do a search for her posts. I believe that she was writing a book on the subject.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Thank you, I will search for Zyrcona!


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Hum, the only thing i get for Zyrcona is this thread...maybe you got the spelling wrong...


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

Hi Tiny Poodles -- Spelling is right. I looked her up in the Members List and found her:
Poodle Forum - Standard Poodle, Toy Poodle, Miniature Poodle Forum ALL Poodle owners too! - View Profile: zyrcona

If you click on Show All Statistics and you will find links to her posts. Well worth reading. Too bad that she is no longer active on this forum.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Weird, when I click that link all I get is a thread about some poodles who need a foster - that person is not even on the thread..
Maybe it is because I am in the app?


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Wrong thread - sorry!


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