# Black Poodle Puppy Turning Brown



## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

Hi, I have just recently purchased a black standard poodle puppy. A few weeks ago, I noticed her muzzle has started turning brown. When we first purchased her six weeks ago, she was solid black with some white markings. I was surprised that her littermate was also black because her mother was a cafe-au-late (I think that’s how you spell it) and her dad was a sable. She is now four months old and seems to be showing brown only on her muzzle. Is it possible for her to turn brown or into a sable like her father? I never owned a poodle before, which is why this color change is a new thing to me. 
Here’s a few pictures:

When we first got her








Her now:


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

Congratulations on your new puppy! Love the expression in that second photo.

It could be from the sun, but I suspect your puppy is actually a beautiful blue rather than black:

*"When taken out into the sunlight or sometimes in the flash of a picture a blue puppy will almost look dark brown in color. This is almost a sure sign of a blue."*





__





POODLE COAT COLORS: BLUE & BLACK


ARPEGGIO Poodles a more indepth look at the poodle coat colors black and blue



arpeggiopoodles.tripod.com


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## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

PeggyTheParti said:


> Congratulations on your new puppy! Love the expression in that second photo.
> 
> It could be from the sun, but I suspect your puppy is actually a beautiful blue rather than black:
> 
> ...


I just read the article you posted and it sounds like she will turn blue. I never even heard of blue poodles before I thought it was a shade of silver. When you look pictures up on the internet of blue poodles, it shows a lot of silver poodles. She does have a few white hairs in between her paws like the article also states. How do sable puppies start out? Just curious because from what I read they start out black and lighten up.


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## FloofyPoodle (May 12, 2020)

Looks like a blue to me! You can see it starting around the nose. Here’s a couple pictures of my poodle, so you know what to expect. He’s a blue, too.
Without flash, at around 2 yrs old:







With flash, same age







You can see he’s got a brown tinge on his fur. And here’s him now at 4 yrs old in a couple of recent pics:














He hasn’t completely finished clearing yet, but you can really see it on his tail and on his muzzle. 
It’s super fun to watch it change, and it really gets going after about 3 yrs old. Your girl is really cute, and I hope you post lots of pictures to show us how it changes!


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

SiayaTheBlackPoodle said:


> I just read the article you posted and it sounds like she will turn blue. I never even heard of blue poodles before I thought it was a shade of silver. When you look pictures up on the internet of blue poodles, it shows a lot of silver poodles. She does have a few white hairs in between her paws like the article also states. How do sable puppies start out? Just curious because from what I read they start out black and lighten up.


I'm not too familiar with that colour, but PF member SamieNorman has a beautiful sable boy.

Scroll down through this thread for his progress photos:









What colour is he?


This is Eddie! He’s 4 weeks old and we’ll be bringing him home in a month! We’re so excited! What colour do you think he’ll be when he’s full grown? Would you call this brindle? Thanks :)




www.poodleforum.com


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I would not bet on blue. I think it is more likely oxidation from sunlight on a wet muzzle. If you shave that face down and it looks black then pup is black. Pups that will be blue will likely have obvious light hairs on their foot pads and shaving or clipping will still show the brownish tinge. Either way that is a cute pup and you will have a lovely long life together regardless of color.


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

lily cd re said:


> I would not bet on blue. I think it is more likely oxidation from sunlight on a wet muzzle. If you shave that face down and it looks black then pup is black. Pups that will be blue will likely have obvious light hairs on their foot pads and shaving or clipping will still show the brownish tinge. Either way that is a cute pup and you will have a lovely long life together regardless of color.


Puppy's got white hairs between her toes. Does that not count? Do the paws themselves look lighter on a blue puppy?


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## Starvt (Nov 5, 2019)

It looks like oxidation to me too. I have a black poodle, and he gets the brown on his muzzle and if I haven't trimmed him in a while (front legs and tail mostly- which are also the most often wet areas). 
The difference is that oxidation starts off looking like 'frosted' tips, but when trimmed he goes back to jet black.
Whereas for a blue, when trimmed the short area are slightly lighter than the rest. 
It's obviously pretty hard to tell the difference bin a picture, but you will get much better idea after his next groom!
Oh, and sables have a distinctly lighter undercoat that you would be seeing by now, and generally goes lighter on the body first. The ears, face, and often a stripe down the back tend to be dark for longest.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Peggy I missed any comment from OP about white hairs on feet. That probably changes things in my thinking.


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## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

FloofyPoodle said:


> Looks like a blue to me! You can see it starting around the nose. Here’s a couple pictures of my poodle, so you know what to expect. He’s a blue, too.
> Without flash, at around 2 yrs old:
> View attachment 467425
> 
> ...


I’ll be sure to update everyone her changes. I’m going to have her groomed again next week.


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## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

Starvt said:


> It looks like oxidation to me too. I have a black poodle, and he gets the brown on his muzzle and if I haven't trimmed him in a while (front legs and tail mostly- which are also the most often wet areas).
> The difference is that oxidation starts off looking like 'frosted' tips, but when trimmed he goes back to jet black.
> Whereas for a blue, when trimmed the short area are slightly lighter than the rest.
> It's obviously pretty hard to tell the difference bin a picture, but you will get much better idea after his next groom!
> Oh, and sables have a distinctly lighter undercoat that you would be seeing by now, and generally goes lighter on the body first. The ears, face, and often a stripe down the back tend to be dark for longest.





PeggyTheParti said:


> Puppy's got white hairs between her toes. Does that not count? Do the paws themselves look lighter on a blue puppy?


My puppy does have some white on her feet. I’m not sure if it’s enough to be considered a blue though.


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## cowpony (Dec 30, 2009)

SiayaTheBlackPoodle said:


> My puppy does have some white on her feet. I’m not sure if it’s enough to be considered a blue though.
> View attachment 467437


Here is a picture of one of Galen's paws tonight.








I once had a black spaniel with the same amount of white between his toes, along with a few white hairs on his chest. The white wouldn't strike me as unusual unless I saw the rest of the dog.








The picture isn't as clear as I'd like, but you can see he is getting a distinct light patch around his nose. He is also getting lighter rings around his eyes; they are more obvious in stronger light.

You said one of your dog's parents was cafe au lait. Your black dog, therefore, has at least a 50% chance of being blue. The same fading gene alters both brown and black. A single copy on a brown dog causes cafe au lait; two copies lighten the brown even further to silver beige. On a black dog like my Galen the gene fades him to blue; two copies would turn him silver.


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

Peggy also has light rings around her eyes! They appeared faintly after her second or third groom, and now they almost match her little moustache. Poodle colours are so fun!


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

cowpony said:


> You said one of your dog's parents was cafe au lait. Your black dog, therefore, has at least a 50% chance of being blue. The same fading gene alters both brown and black. A single copy on a brown dog causes cafe au lait; two copies lighten the brown even further to silver beige. On a black dog like my Galen the gene fades him to blue; two copies would turn him silver.


I find this stuff equally fascinating and baffling. Peggy's sire is a brown parti and her mom is cream. Could she end up silver?



SiayaTheBlackPoodle said:


> I’ll be sure to update everyone her changes. I’m going to have her groomed again next week.


Please do! I love watching poodle progress. You might consider starting a thread over here, where you post a photo a week:









52 Weeks of Your Poodle







www.poodleforum.com


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## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

cowpony said:


> Here is a picture of one of Galen's paws tonight.
> View attachment 467438
> 
> I once had a black spaniel with the same amount of white between his toes, along with a few white hairs on his chest. The white wouldn't strike me as unusual unless I saw the rest of the dog.
> ...


How old is Galen? When would you expect to see changes in my puppy? Since her father was a sable, would that give her another recessive copy?


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## cowpony (Dec 30, 2009)

Galen is five months.

You have at least three confusing gene interactions in the parents.

One is the fading gene that produced the cafe au lair color in mama dog. 50% chance of your pup having it, unless mama was actually silver beige. Then it's 100%.

Another is brown vs black. Cafe au lait is just faded brown. Normally black is dominant over brown; the dog needs two copies of the brown gene to be brown. Since your pup is currently black, and you know she couldn't have got a black gene from her brown-based mama, she must have inherited it from papa dog.

The third is sable. It is a dominant gene. If your genetically black dog has one copy of the sable gene, it will be sable. Sable shows up very early. I haven't personally seen it in a poodle puppy, but the changing hair shaft colors were obvious on our sable mutt pup by 9 weeks. My guess is you would notice your pup getting splotchy by now if sable was present.

There's a pretty good description of colors at Dog Coat Color - Genetic Tests - AnimaLabs©. Just keep in mind that some of the gene variations are rare to non existent in poodles (recessive black, for example.) Additionally, the blue in other breeds, like pit bulls, has a different genetic basis than the blue in poodles. A dilute blue starts out blue with grey noses and stay blue. Blue poodles start out black with black noses and fade to blue with black noses.


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## Starvt (Nov 5, 2019)

PeggyTheParti said:


> I find this stuff equally fascinating and baffling. Peggy's sire is a brown parti and her mom is cream. Could she end up silver?


I think she could end up blue. If her sire is a brown then he would not have been able to contribute a fading gene, but she could get to one from her mother (poodle colors are much more confusing than the other breeds I know colour genetics on, but I believe cream is red with fading).


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## Raindrops (Mar 24, 2019)

PeggyTheParti said:


> I find this stuff equally fascinating and baffling. Peggy's sire is a brown parti and her mom is cream. Could she end up silver?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think Peggy is certainly going blue, but no chance of silver. If she was silver she would have had a pale muzzle from the start which would have been visible the first time her face was shaved.


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## Whoiscoconut (May 11, 2020)

Raindrops said:


> I think Peggy is certainly going blue, but no chance of silver. If she was silver she would have had a pale muzzle from the start which would have been visible the first time her face was shaved.


What is seal coloring? I ran across that today researching and didn’t understand it at all.


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

Raindrops said:


> I think Peggy is certainly going blue, but no chance of silver. If she was silver she would have had a pale muzzle from the start which would have been visible the first time her face was shaved.


Is there such a thing as light blue? So almost silver? Because I saw a photo on Poodle Forum of a Peggy twin that turned out _super_ light. I wish I could remember the user name....


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## cowpony (Dec 30, 2009)

PeggyTheParti said:


> Is there such a thing as light blue? So almost silver? Because I saw a photo on Poodle Forum of a Peggy twin that turned out _super_ light. I wish I could remember the user name....


A single copy of the gene will give blue. Two copies of the gene will give silver. There's a fair amount of variation on how light each one gets.


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## Raindrops (Mar 24, 2019)

PeggyTheParti said:


> Is there such a thing as light blue? So almost silver? Because I saw a photo on Poodle Forum of a Peggy twin that turned out _super_ light. I wish I could remember the user name....


Yeah there is for sure differences in how light blues are as well as a range in silvers. I know you can't really tell how dark they'll end up until they finish clearing though.


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## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

Starvt said:


> I think she could end up blue. If her sire is a brown then he would not have been able to contribute a fading gene, but she could get to one from her mother (poodle colors are much more confusing than the other breeds I know colour genetics on, but I believe cream is red with fading).


Her dam was brown and her sire was a sable. Her muzzle is getting browner everyday. I think she most likely will be a blue if that’s what the brown muzzle means. If not then it sounds like she may just be black. This color-changing game is quite the guessing game.


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## Starvt (Nov 5, 2019)

SiayaTheBlackPoodle said:


> Her dam was brown and her sire was a sable. Her muzzle is getting browner everyday. I think she most likely will be a blue if that’s what the brown muzzle means. If not then it sounds like she may just be black. This color-changing game is quite the guessing game.


Sorry that was directed to Peggy!
In your pup's case, if her mother was brown she would not have a fading gene and therefore can't pass one on. The sable is a lot harder, the few I have seen it would be really hard to know whether a fading gene is present or not since the sable causes them to lighten up a lot anyways (and depending on hair cut). I'm not sure if there is a way to tell.
I'm certainly interested to see how your pup looks after her next haircut though!


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

Each puppy haircut is such a colour adventure!


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## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

Here’s a picture of Saiya’s second grooming.







The groomer said that she is a pure black poodle.


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## Starvt (Nov 5, 2019)

Ohhh, she looks lovely in her new groom! Sure does look solid black, just like my Raffi 😍


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## Raven's Mom (Mar 18, 2014)

I have a blue and they are very slow to change colors, unlike the silvers that fade rapidly. Raven was not her full color until age 3. Now I believe Wren may be fading too. I was sure he was black but now his hopes and back look more charcoal. They are interesting to watch. I remember seeing pictures of a another member’s s male tuxedo spoo that was black and white who eventually became blue and white and I was so shocked. He had been very black.


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## Johanna (Jun 21, 2017)

cowpony said:


> A single copy of the gene will give blue. Two copies of the gene will give silver. There's a fair amount of variation on how light each one gets.


I am not sure that is correct. Most of the color genetic information that I have seen says that blue is a black poodle with the gene for dilution (restriction of melanin in the hair shaft)


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

She looks very beautiful and very, very black.  Does she still have the white hairs on her paws?


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## cowpony (Dec 30, 2009)

Johanna said:


> I am not sure that is correct. Most of the color genetic information that I have seen says that blue is a black poodle with the gene for dilution (restriction of melanin in the hair shaft)


I think it's theres some vocabulary confusion. The word blue is used to describe the color produced by two different genes. One blue gene dilutes black. The puppy is born blue with a grey nose. Think blue doberman or blue pitbull. It's a recessive; the pup needs two copies of the gene. There is a test for carriers.
The other blue gene fades black. The puppy starts out black with a black nose and gradually gets lighter, retaining its black nose. It is thought to be an incomplete dominant. A single copy causes the dog to lighten up over several years. Two copies makes the dog start lightening younger and end paler. To my knowledge the testing companies haven't nailed it down enough to make a test yet; I suppose it's possible they haven't because everyone misunderstood the mechanism. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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## Johanna (Jun 21, 2017)

cowpony said:


> I think it's theres some vocabulary confusion. The word blue is used to describe the color produced by two different genes. One blue gene dilutes black. The puppy is born blue with a grey nose. Think blue doberman or blue pitbull. It's a recessive; the pup needs two copies of the gene. There is a test for carriers.
> The other blue gene fades black. The puppy starts out black with a black nose and gradually gets lighter, retaining its black nose. It is thought to be an incomplete dominant. A single copy causes the dog to lighten up over several years. Two copies makes the dog start lightening younger and end paler. To my knowledge the testing companies haven't nailed it down enough to make a test yet; I suppose it's possible they haven't because everyone misunderstood the mechanism. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


To the best of my knowledge, the first type does not exist in poodles.


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## cowpony (Dec 30, 2009)

Johanna said:


> To the best of my knowledge, the first type does not exist in poodles.


I'm not aware of it either. Probably a good thing, as it is associated with alopecia. The breed doesn't need another source of alopecia.


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## SiayaTheBlackPoodle (Jun 17, 2020)

PeggyTheParti said:


> She looks very beautiful and very, very black.  Does she still have the white hairs on her paws?


Yes, she still has some white hair. A touch on one of her front paws and a little on her back paws. Here’s a picture of one of her front paws.


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