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updated puppy pics and rat terrier color genetics

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I found this website to try to understand the colors I'm getting with my RT's. I'm starting to understand, but to me seems way more complicated than equine color genetics or maybe it's just because I haven't been studying it as long. http://www.1st-writer.com/ColorGenetics/lesson1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; With these 2 dogs, my brown/choc male I get black tri and sable only because my sable female does not carry choc, but she does carry black and her sable color is dominant. I get all different shades of sable though. [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/phpMQ087ZPM.jpg[/…] [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/Penny10months017-…] = this puppy is more of a reddish sable like his mom [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/phpXkq3kCPM.jpg[/…] Penny with her black/tri's and sables [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/2011%20puppies/01…] this shade of sable is like a wolf sable [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/P1000930.jpg[/img] and with the same choc/tan/white male above with my blue/tan/white female I'm now getting [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/2011%20puppies/te…] = blue/tan white, blue is diluted black [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/2011%20puppies/03…] pearl or Isabella which is diluted choc [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/2011%20puppies/03…] and choc which is often mistaken for a dilute but is not, I think it is kind of like a bay horse [img]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy134/rodeoratdogs/2011%20puppies/04…]

Dogrose Thu, 02/17/2011 - 12:36

Chocolate/liver is an allele on the B locus and is caused by a different form of eumelanin. The development of the black eumelanin pigment is halted or slowed so appears brown instead. It isn't the same as bay, bay is caused by agouti banding the hairs with yellow/red phaeolmelanin. You can get chocolate agouti: A-bb If chocolate existed in horses that would be a chocolate bay.
You are right about the dilutes- the d locus allele turns black to blue and chocolate to lilac by causing less pigment to be produced by the melanocytes.
Just wanted to add liver/chocolate is not a dilution as the pigment is full strength, just a different colour. (Samre is bay isn't a dilution either).

rodeoratdogs Thu, 02/17/2011 - 14:56

Ok thanks Dogrose, that helps me understand it better, I knew that choc was not a dilution that's why I was likening it to a bay horse lol. If I could just compare the my dog colors to a horse color I would understand it better, the blue one is a grulla (minus the dun) :lol: the pearl is a buckskin....kinda, or is that like a champagne :-??

Dogrose Thu, 02/17/2011 - 15:45

I guess it makes it harder that horses don't have chocolate or blue dilute genes :D
I know I don't understand dog agouti alleles, my friend has a sable (which looks agouti to me) dog by a black groenendaal out of a black and white border collie, can't work that out LOL.

rodeoratdogs Thu, 02/17/2011 - 17:48

I know all the information is there on that website I posted but it will take me awhile to absorb all of that 8-}

The other thing I don't understand is why or what causes all the different shades of sable I get. I guess "sable" because it has black points can produce black and sable, but I have had everything from a very light cream colored sable with black hairs around the edges and black points, all the way to very dark brown with the black points and everything inbetween. The very light cream colored one was very pretty, the color was reminiscent of a buttermilk buckskin horse.

Danni Thu, 02/17/2011 - 20:43

[quote="Dogrose"]You are right about the dilutes- the d locus allele turns black to blue and chocolate to lilac by causing less pigment to be produced by the melanocytes.
Just wanted to add liver/chocolate is not a dilution as the pigment is full strength, just a different colour. [/quote]

I know that chocolate isn't considered a dilute, but it always seems to follow basic dilution rules to me? I mean it's just a lighter colour black? Hair, skin and eyes are all paler version? Like in horses, dun can dilute black to a grey/silver colour, and silver can dilute black to a chocolate colour. I don't mean they are exact parallels, just that different dilutions can dilute to different colours?

rodeoratdogs Thu, 02/17/2011 - 21:18

Right they are not exact parallels, but there are some similarities like the diluted black base being blue in both dogs and horses (grulla horses). Before I learned different I assumed that Chocolate was a dilute because of it's self colored nose and eye rims.

.....this page talks more about that.....

http://www.1st-writer.com/ColorGenetics…" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Crias Fri, 03/04/2011 - 23:04

In reply to by Daylene Alford

The variation you see in the sables is much like variation you might see in a palomino horse (from Isabell to Chocolate Palo)... I am sure another gene (something equivalent to sooty) affects the degree of dark ticking that they get (which makes them appear darker or lighter).

I found this quote on a web site on dog genetics (http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/agout…) -> "Although many dog breeders have assumed that the differences in darkness of fawn or sable dogs is determined by whether they are homozygous or heterozygous for ay, it is now known that some to all of this variation is caused by another gene. The cover from the 2005 issue containing our article describing the ay allele shows 4 dogs that are all ay/ay, yet vary tremendously in shading: Peyton, a female Shetland Sheepdog; Rain, a male Belgian Tervuren; Bull, a male Mastiff; Ginny, a female Akita. DNA tests to distinguish this allele from the "a" in Shelties, Tervuren/Groenendael, and a few other breeds are now offered by Healthgene (http://www.HealthGene.com), based on these findings."

rodeoratdogs Sat, 03/05/2011 - 09:49

Thanks Crias! I also found this interesting, I am getting the wolf sable color very often with my Penny and 50 Cent cross even though they say it is not very common, somehow I am getting that more primitive sable color in my Rat Terriers,and I haven't really seen any other RT breeders get it at all.

Agouti signal peptide is also the gene that causes a wolf or coyote to have yellowish hair with black tips and base. The competition, in that case, is going on as the hair is growing, which results in a hair that changes color along its length. This gene is likely also causing the change in hair color in the Malamute, Siberian Husky (shown above), the Elkhound, and some German Shepherd Dogs. The allele which causes this banding of hairs is sometimes called the wild type allele (aw). In German Shepherds, like Fello at the right, this pattern is called sable. Although this allele was once fixed in dogs, if we assume that they all descended from the wolf, it is not a very common allele in dog breeds today.

This is Pebbles, she was the first Wolf Sable I got, other Rat Terrier breeder's thought her color really nice and encouraged me to keep her, but this awesome lady picked her out and adores her so I couldn't be happier in the home she got.
Before the lady picked her and named her Pebbles because she said she was like the color of Pebbles on the beach I called her Wolfy. :love:

[IMG]http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy13…]