# Nine month old puppy with white hairs?



## Stanley2413 (Jan 9, 2014)

Hi all,
So I've noticed on my nine month old puppy that she has a small patch of white hairs appearing on her back. My first poodle didn't start showing gray hairs till he was about 7 or 8 years old. Should I be worried? 
Thanks


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Hi Stanley2413, Your post makes me think two possibilities: first is there any chance she is a blue beginning to clear? You would see white hairs between the toes, I understand. I doubt this is the case, because from what I have read here the clearing usually starts at the tail end and legs and gradually works forward - and also you'd see a lighted face. However, it is one possibility.

What I think more likely is a few stray white hairs is probably normal for blacks (I am assuming your puppy is a black?) I posted about it myself one time. The only thing that throws me off is you describe a "Patch" of white hairs. DO you mean all clustered in a distinctive patch or do you mean several hairs sprinkled throughout the coat? Other posters with lots of experience assured me that a few hairs sprinkled across the back or perhaps one or two in the topknot is not unusual.


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## Spoos+Ponies (Mar 26, 2014)

My 8 month old girl has had some white hairs on her lower spine for a couple of months now, and every groom shows more white hairs on her cheeks. She is still very dark overall, but is a blue. I have had a silver previously and expected the clearing to be similar to that, an overall lightening, but it is quite different.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

There is a big difference between stark white guard hairs (not an indication of overall color) and graying/whitening regular hair meaning blue or bad black.
My previous girl who started out black but was from a silver x black breeding wound up being blue - at about a year old she started graying on the tail, and took about a year to work it's way forward. From then on she got lighter every year of her life - in the end she was barely one shade darker than my silver.

My 11 month old black girl has always had a sprinkle of stark white guard hairs on her lower back, but so far no color change. Though I still suspect that there might be fading genes in her from her black x apricot heritage. But then again her mother was a black from a black x apricot breeding and did not fade, so I guess it could go either way?


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## Stanley2413 (Jan 9, 2014)

Thanks All! I checked my puppy and she doesn't have any white hairs between her toes, so i'm guessing she is not blue; but it could be a possibility because her siblings from the same litter were blue. Her papers say she is black, and in the light, she is jet-black. I shouldn't have used the word "patch", it's more a sprinkling of white hairs on her lower back.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

If your pup has white in her background then that salt in the pepper is something called grizzled. Lily's mom was white and she has had a little sprinkling of white since she was quite young.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

If her littermates were blue, then probably one of the parents was silver? For that reason, not the sprinkle of white hairs, she will probably get lighter as she gets older - only time will tell!


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## Bizzeemamanj (Apr 14, 2014)

Cooper is a 10 month old brown mini and he has white guard hairs sprinkled throughout his coat, primarily on his back. His sire and dam had them as well.


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## Mahlon (Jun 8, 2014)

Well, its a difficult question to answer definitively as there are only theories on the subject, some of which are very well thought out and look to be true (backed up by pedigree evidence) but they have yet to link any of the dilution factors to specific genetic locations (eumelanin or phaeomelanin, one dilution does not affect the other by the way).

The short of it is as others said these are guard hairs, and these often come in, in a different shade or color than the rest of the coat. Grizzled usually refers more to facial greying (often seen in black labs, etc.) but is very similar and might even be linked to sporadic body hairs. At 10 months, you are probably also in the midst of coat change which could also explain why they are showing up now. As others stated if you were dealing with blue/silver, the face would be the first to show (if kept shaved), and the hairs would change from the root. And lastly, the simplest explanation usually is the most correct, and that might just be a spot where there was some sort of tissue damage, a hot burn, cold burn, scar tissue, sun damage, etc. There are cold brands used in the cattle trade that turn the "burned" area stark white. To me this seems most likely since you described the hairs as a small patch.








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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Bizzeemamanj said:


> Cooper is a 10 month old brown mini and he has white guard hairs sprinkled throughout his coat, primarily on his back. His sire and dam had them as well.



Hum, 
I never realized that having them on the back is a thing, but I guess it is since that is where everyone is reporting that they are.
Timi's are where I clip her short anyhow, so it isn't too bad - I just wish the darn things didn't grow faster than the regular hair though because that makes them more noticeable!


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Mahlon said:


> Well, its a difficult question to answer definitively as there are only theories on the subject, some of which are very well thought out and look to be true (backed up by pedigree evidence) but they have yet to link any of the dilution factors to specific genetic locations (eumelanin or phaeomelanin, one dilution does not affect the other by the way).
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interesting, but I believe in poodles, skin damage usually results in the hair color going back to it's original, darker color. That is certainly the way it is with my silver (whose hair will turn black for a few months), and my apricot(whose hair will turn red for a few months) after skin damage.


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## Mahlon (Jun 8, 2014)

If you did the same cold branding on a dog or poodle, it would also cause the same result  Yes, when a dog receives a vaccine, or other types of injury, hair coming back darker is common. When the actual melanocytes are damaged though (in a different way) it will cause white 

-Dan


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