# Theoretical Breeding Question about Color



## Dina (Jan 24, 2016)

Hi Everyone, 

I have a theoretical question regarding the outcome of this color breeding 

(I have no plans to breed, nor has Hugo knocked anyone up lol. A friend at the dog park who has a spayed spoo got us talking about the possibilities of color) 

I was wondering lets say a Male Blue poodle (who has a Cream mother and a Silver father) bred a Female Black poodle (who has a silver beige mother, i'm not sure what color the father is..maybe black?) 
Would all the puppies be black due to it being the dominant color or since the female carries the fading brown gene from her mother, is their a chance they would be blue, silver, silver beige? 

Thanks!


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

I love thinking about poodle color genetics, so let me take a stab at this.

Sire: Blue poodle (who has a Cream mother and a Silver father). So we know that this dog carries the recessive cream gene (from his mother), and also has a fading gene (from his father). We don't know if the sire carries the recessive brown gene. 

Dam: Black poodle (who has a silver beige mother, i'm not sure what color the father is..maybe black?). If the dam has a silver beige mother, then she carries the recessive brown gene. We do not know if she carries the recessive cream gene or not. I am a bit confused about the facts given regarding whether the dam is carrying the fading gene or not. If she is really black and not blue, then she does not carry the fading gene. But if her mother is really silver beige (not cafe au lait) then she would pass the fading gene on and the dam would be blue not black (maybe dark blue?). At least that's my understanding. So I'd question what is really going on here. 

It would be helpful to know if the sire carries the brown gene and if the dam carries the cream gene. There are DNA tests that can give you those answers. Or you can make an educated guess by finding out more about the colors in the pedigree. (Take a look at the color pedigrees at poodledata.org.)

If the dam does not carry the cream gene, then there will be no cream puppies. If the dam does carry the cream gene, then each pup has a 25% chance of being cream. So in a litter of 8, chances are that you would have 2 creams.

If the sire does not carry the brown gene, then there will be no puppies that are born brown. That means no brown, no cafe au lait and no silver beige. If the sire does carry the brown gene, then each pup has a 25% chance of being born brown. 

Regarding fading (black puppies clearing to blue or silver and brown puppies clearing to cafe au lait or silver beige, here's the story. We know that the blue sire has a 50% chance of passing a fading gene on to his offspring. If the dam is really black (no fading gene), then she will definitely not pass a fading gene on. So chances are that half of the puppies that are born black will clear to blue and 50% will stay black. Similarly, if any pups are born brown, there would be a 50% chance that they would clear to cafe. 

The fading gene has not been located, so there is no DNA test for it.

There is a helpful chart here:
https://www.vetgen.com/chromagene-coat-color-b.html

Hope this helps.

PS. My Cammie came from a blue sire and a black dam. Both carried the cream gene. She was one of two cream puppies out of a litter of 8.


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## AngelAviary (Aug 12, 2014)

Love this stuff. As someone with colors, I love to read what everyone suggests and posts when It comes to genetics. The more I read, than the more I can wrap my brain around all this stuff. Genetics are tough!


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## Dina (Jan 24, 2016)

Hello, It looks like my friend was mistaken with the info she gave me. She says the father was an apricot and the mother was a café au lait... 

Sent from my HUAWEI G7-L03 using Tapatalk


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

Dina said:


> Hello, It looks like my friend was mistaken with the info she gave me. She says the father was an apricot and the mother was a café au lait...
> 
> Sent from my HUAWEI G7-L03 using Tapatalk


OK -- So your friend has a Female Black poodle, who has a cafe au lait mother and an apricot father? That changes things. Here's my revised analysis. 

Note that there is one gene that selects for white, cream, apricot and red -- anything on that spectrum. I'll call it cream/apricot or cream. The exact shade of white-cream-apricot-red will depend on more complex genetics. But for our purposes, "cream/apricot" is close enough.

Sire: Blue poodle (who has a Cream mother and a Silver father). So we know that this dog carries the recessive cream gene (from his mother who would have had two copies of it). We don't know if the sire carries the recessive brown gene. The sire could be BBEe or BbEe, depending on whether he carries the brown gene or not. Since he is blue, he definitely carries one copy of the fading gene. (Unlike the recessive brown and cream genes, the fading gene is not recessive. A dog with two fading genes will fade a lot, and a dog with one fading gene will fade a little bit. This is how you get blue/silver and cafe au lait/ silver beige.) 

Dam: Black poodle (who has a cafe au lait mother and an apricot father). We know that the dam carries the recessive cream/apricot gene because her apricot father would have passed one of his two copies on to her. We know that the dam carries the recessive brown gene because her cafe au lait mother would have passed one of her two copies on. So the Dam is BbEe. If the dam is really black, then she did not inherit the fading gene from her mother and does not carry the fading gene.

Since both parents are black (or blue), carrying the cream/apricot gene, we know that each pup has a 25% chance of getting 2 cream/apricot genes (one from each parent) and being cream or apricot.

It would be helpful to know if the sire carries the brown gene. You could do a DNA test to find out. Or you can make an educated guess by finding out more about the colors in the pedigree. (Take a look at the color pedigrees at poodledata.org.) 

For now, let's assume that the sire does not carry the brown gene. So he would be BBEe and he could not produce any brown, cafe au lait or silver beige puppies. In this case, odds are that 75% of the pups would be born black and 25% would be cream or apricot. 

The puppies that are born black, would have a 50% chance of inheriting one fading gene (and later clearing to blue) and a 50% chance of getting no fading genes (and staying black).

SO .... I am predicting 25% cream/apricot, 37.5% black, 37.5% blue.

If the sire does carry the brown gene (BbEe) then you might get a few brown or cafe au lait in addition to cream/apricot, black and blue.

Take a look at the chart that I posted previously.


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## chinchillafuzzy (Feb 11, 2017)

Peppersb your explanations are fascinating. Love learning about this stuff! I have a question about the chart that you posted. If white/cream/apricot/red dogs are recessive genes, then how (according to that chart) can they be carrying for black/brown? I am talking about the genotypes like Bbee. The little circles inside and the explaination at the bottom seem to say this, I just can't figure out how that is possible, unless I am completely misunderstanding the chart!


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

chinchillafuzzy said:


> Peppersb your explanations are fascinating. Love learning about this stuff! I have a question about the chart that you posted. If white/cream/apricot/red dogs are recessive genes, then how (according to that chart) can they be carrying for black/brown? I am talking about the genotypes like Bbee. The little circles inside and the explaination at the bottom seem to say this, I just can't figure out how that is possible, unless I am completely misunderstanding the chart!


I am no expert, but the way I understand it is that an ee dog caries the underlying genetics of black or brown (BB or Bb or bb), but the combination of two recessive e's makes the dog cream (or some color on the white-cream-apricot-red spectrum). So whether the ee dog is BB, Bb or bb is hidden, but it is still there and may play a role in what color offspring he produces. 

For example, my Sam is BBee. I am reasonably certain that he is not Bb or bb because there is no brown on either side of his pedigree. So the BB is black, not brown. But the fact that he is ee means that he is cream. So he carries the black-not-brown genetics, but you would not know that by looking at him. 

Sam was bred to a blue bitch who did not carry brown or cream -- BBEE. This means that all of the puppies got an e from Sam and an E from their mother. So they were all BBEe. That means they were all born black. Any dog that is Ee will be born black if they are BB or Bb, or brown if they are bb.

I hope this answers your question.

For a fabulous article on poodle color genetics, see the article that starts on page 14 here:
http://www.poodleclubcanada.club/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/MARCH_PCC_2015.pdf


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## Dina (Jan 24, 2016)

peppersb said:


> I am no expert, but the way I understand it is that an ee dog caries the underlying genetics of black or brown (BB or Bb or bb), but the combination of two recessive e's makes the dog cream (or some color on the white-cream-apricot-red spectrum). So whether the ee dog is BB, Bb or bb is hidden, but it is still there and may play a role in what color offspring he produces.
> 
> For example, my Sam is BBee. I am reasonably certain that he is not Bb or bb because there is no brown on either side of his pedigree. So the BB is black, not brown. But the fact that he is ee means that he is cream. So he carries the black-not-brown genetics, but you would not know that by looking at him.
> 
> ...


Thank you!!

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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

Let me amend what I said before. Actually with a cream poodle that carried two brown genes (bbee), you would see a difference -- the cream poodle would have brown points (lips, pads, nose, and eyelids). For this reason, breeders generally do not like to breed white, cream, apricot or red to brown. (Black points are preferred for white, cream, apricot, red poodles.)

Cream poodles can also carry the fading genes and pass them on, even though you do not see the effects of the fading gene in the creams (at least not the same way you see it in poodles that are born black or brown). Sam is cream and the fading gene had no effect on his color. He is almost the same color now as when he was born. But I know that that he carries the fading gene because his father is silver. It is possible that he carries two copies of the fading gene because his maternal grandfather is blue. His mother is cream (so we can't tell by looking at her if she carries the fading gene or not). Her parents are black (mother has no fading genes) and blue (father has one fading gene and one non-fading gene). So Sam's mother might have no fading genes (none to pass on to Sam) or she might have one fading gene (in which case Sam might or might not have received that fading gene from his mom). 

Sam's puppies are still young -- they have not yet cleared. As I mentioned before, they were all born black. At least one is silver (inherited fading gene from Sam and from her blue mom). Most of them look like they are going to be blue.


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## chinchillafuzzy (Feb 11, 2017)

Thanks again peppersb! You explanation was very helpful. So for a white dog with only white and black ancestors at least 5 generations back, is the genotype likely the same as Sam - BBee?


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

chinchillafuzzy said:


> Thanks again peppersb! You explanation was very helpful. So for a white dog with only white and black ancestors at least 5 generations back, is the genotype likely the same as Sam - BBee?


Probably BBee. But a Bbee dog would look black even though he would be carrying the brown gene. For that reason, it is possible to have a 'b' that is hidden for several generations. So if you can look back 7 or 8 generations, that would give you more assurance. Or to be absolutely certain, you can have the DNA test done. You can look at a color pedigree and go back as many generations as you want on poodledata.org. Just click on dogs farther back in the pedigree to see their pedigrees. Of course, there may be data that is missing. But for standard poodles from show lines, it is amazing how much data is available.


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