# Identifying Silver in Newborn Poodles



## Rose n Poos (Sep 22, 2017)

I'm not very knowledgeable beyond some basics. Others will drop in, I;m sure.

What color are the dam and sire?
Is there any silver or blue in either line?
The "fading" gene isn't yet DNA identified, so the color history is key.

Two fading genes required to get silver, one to get blue. By 6 weeks a shaved face will show which.

Silver on the right. The pup on the left is not silver.


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## lex4423 (11 mo ago)

Rose n Poos said:


> I'm not very knowledgeable beyond some basics. Others will drop in, I;m sure.
> 
> What color are the dam and sire?
> Is there any silver or blue in either line?
> ...


The sire was red and the dam was sable, on his side mostly reds and blacks in the pedigree and Dam is sable and her mother was cafe au lait and father was sable


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## twyla (Apr 28, 2010)

CAfe is the dilute in the pedigree


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## cowpony (Dec 30, 2009)

It's complicated, not everything related to color has accurate tests as of yet, and the terms used to describe colors get applied differently in different breeds. Born blue, as in a blue hound or a blue doberman, is a dilution governed by the D locus. The nose and paw pads are gray as well as the hair. It's pretty rare in poodles.
What's more common in poodles is born black clearing to blue or silver. Originally a lot of people thought it was an incomplete dominant, where one copy of the gene would give blue and two copies would give silver. An article that came out in 2020 suggested it's not quite that simple, and color intensity can be affected by the number of repeats of an intensity gene. Except when it isn't.  Pigment Intensity in Dogs is Associated with a Copy Number Variant Upstream of KITLG


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

If you wait a few weeks and shave their faces you will know if they are silver.


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## Sroodle8 (Dec 23, 2021)

I cannot answer your question, but that little paw is adorable! Brought a smile to my face.


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## PoodlesinMass (10 mo ago)

Silver and blue are complicated. You can get a blue from 2 silvers so it is not straight forward. The toenails at birth are a good indication as silver/white nails are more likely silver, blues are silver/white nails with black tips, black are normally black. But the nail color is not totally accurate. The white is the pads indicates blue/silver but time and clippering faces at 6 weeks will give you the most likely color.


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