All Dog Coat Genetics

[Ceph]

I posted the German Shepherd stuff, but I thought ya'll might be interested in what colors make the dogs tick...so maybe you can look at your dog and go..oh yeah...he or she has that gene :D I'll give the Locus name in bold, and next to that the locus symbol, and under that I will place the alleles and their symbols. I think there are variations from dog to dog, like certain loci affect different breeds differently...but this is the general stuff.

I believe (not 100% sure) that when they say wild type they mean no changes made by these genes.

Agouti : A
Solid Black - A
Sable - ay
Grey - ag
Saddle - as
Black and Tan - at
No pattern - a

Albino : C
Wild Type - C
Chinchilla - cch
Dondo - cd (white with black skin)

Brindle : Br
Brindle : Brb
Wild Type : Br

Brown : B
Wild Type : B
brown/liver : b

Cyclic Neutropenia : Cn
Wild type : Cn
Cyclic Neutropenia : Cncn

Dilution : D
wild type : D
maltese dilution : d (usually to blue I believe)

Extension : E
Dominant Black : Ed
wild type : E
fawn : e

Flecking : F
Fleacked : F
Non-flecked : f

Grey : G
Grey : G
Wild Type : g

Grey Points : Grp
wild type : Grp
grey points : Grpg

Harlequin : H
Harequin : H
Wild Type : h

Intense : Int
Cream : Intc
fawn : Intf
tan : Intt

Mask : Ma
Masked : MaM
Wild Type : Mam

Merle : M
Merle : M
non-merle : m

Piebald : S
wild type : S
Irish : Si
Piebald : Sp
Extreme Piebald : Sw

Pink Eye Dilute : P
wild type : P
Pink eyed dilute : p

Powder puff : Pp
wild type : Pp
powder puff : Pppp

Slate Grey : Sg
slate grey : SgS
wild type : Sgs

Ticking : T
Ticked : T
wild type : t

Tweed : Tw
Tweed : TwT
wild type : Twt

White : Wh
wild type : WhW
White : Whw


This is from a farily new book called Genetics of Coat Color and Hair Texture edited by D.P. Sponenberg and M.F. Rothschild.

Again, I think certain Loci affect these dogs differently...either that or the books I was reading on the GSD are a wee bit far behind :p Oh well, more research for me :p Hope you all enjoy!

[borzoimom]

wow okay let me think I have a uh.. bred to a that made a ..
VERY GOOD INFORMATION CEPH! Maybe you should change your major.. lol.. :D

[GreyhoundGirl]

Uhhhhh... lol I have no idea what all this means... I'll go with me old-fashioned "Jenny is black and white" statement. :p

Would she be this?

"Extension : E
Dominant Black : Ed"

[Ceph]

I would have to say Jenny has the solid gene a-a at the agouti, Ed-Ed at extension, and then probably Piebald maybe? That might be what causes the white on her chest :D

[lassie]

mine are all "ay's"

[Mahooli]

I've not heard of the book but the universal letters for a mask is actually Em, The 'harlequin' is known as the white spotting gene and is sp (with some others for different types of spotting). You also haven't got dominant blac(K) or the K gene!
Becky

[coco-bean]

Yea i dont know what all that means either, im new to breeding/color lingo haha! what color will cainan and corona make?
corona is yellow(her mom is yellow/dad is black)
Cainan is black(both are black)
i was told she'd have all black with the exception of one or two yellow...and they'd be females no doubt about it...i just dont know though

[Ceph]

lol, I just pulled this straight from a book in the Virginia Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Meidicine Library, which is also a research school. I need to find another book on dog genetics, but havent been able to yet :p

I also noticed that there are some differences between this book and one of the German Shepherd books I was looking at, but since this is more recent I decided to quote mostly what was from here...the German Shepherd book quoted the mask as you said above, but I have no idea where the K comes from.... Do you have suggestions for more books (preferably recent) that have this info? I am really interested it...and I didnt see what is responsible for making the points white. This subject is always changing I think, so its possible that information from the past has changed or the information from that book has changed in the five years its been in print.

As for labs here is what I found =

Black labs are wild type in the Extension Locus, most likley with no pattern in the agouti locus Choclate labs are bb in the Brown locus, and yellow labs are ee in the extension locus. Black labs are the dominant of the three colors.

this is a site for the labradors that I looked up...it gives the combinations. http://www.blueknightlabs.com/color/coatcolor.html

Hope that helps :D

[Areias]

I am so much better with horse color genetics than dog color genetics. :rolleyes:

So if I have a mostly white dog...but with dark brown spots on ears and one big spot on her rump-Whw S?

[Ceph]

the brown spots (if they are small like a setters) are most likley due to a ticking gene if she is mostly white with a brown spot it is most likley something in the spotting gene (probably piebald or extreme piebald) restricting the color to that point on her body :D

Hope that helps some :D

[Ceph]

Kind of a nifty thing I read about last night that has to do with genetics

Color in the dog is caused my melanocytes...the two types of which are Eumelanin and Phaeomelanin. Eumelanin is made up mostly of tyrosine and causes black color and derivatives of black such as blue grey or choclate brown (blue and liver/red :p) Phaeomelanin contains cysteine and tyrosine and causes tan and reddish brown colors to appear. Though this can sometimes be difficult to notice because a light eumelanin may look like a dark phaeomelanin.

White is caused by a lack of melanins...either the melanin isnt being produced, the receptors arent recieving, or the receptors are not able to translate the melanin to the coat or certain areas of the body.

When they are talking about wild types they are talking about the color of wolves...or the main colors of the ancestors of the dogs...the most common being a pale sable where part of the hair closest to the body are pale phaeomelanic and where the distal portions of the hairs are more eumelanic.

I got most of this from the Genetics of the dog book :D

I will post coat types later today since I got some information on that.

[MajesticCollies]

I like the picture way better
lol
http://www.serenadecollies.com/ColorChart.html

[borzoimom]

I like the picture way better
lol
http://www.serenadecollies.com/ColorChart.html
I do too!

[skunkstripe]

Really! That makes it easy to comprehend!

[BCNTC]

pssst it doesnt work for ALL dogs. PYresheps are funky, there is actually a private study right now trying to figer out what the heck is so different about pyrsheps. any other breed if you know your colour genetics you can predict what colours are possable in the litter, you can take an educated guess with pyrsheps, but good luck with that lol

now for the case of Blair. geneticts are increably interested in Blairs DNA because by current knowledge..he aint possable lol

Blair as a young puppy, 12 week I think
http://www.mypetpages.net/artists/116/0/fc2dafc08b6ca564eab7d8eac5c28b20.jpg

17 weeks, clearly Brindle, but slight smattering of grey on his face
http://www.mypetpages.net/artists/116/0/f11210ae1ba69519669a4073fe0bd5a9.jpg

8 months, not totaly merles yet, still darkend from the brown
http://www.mypetpages.net/artists/116/0/b91487a05b07ff2d2f9a7d905d66690a.jpg


1 year old, now merle..but notice his beard is brown? thats not stain its brindle, also notice what you can see of his ears are darker, they are brindle.
http://www.mypetpages.net/artists/116/0/a28089057de8e42d6bbbbf973cd39578.jpg

now:
here you can really see the brown and brindling around his mouth
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Blair/IMG_0392.jpg

reallt hard to get the brindle of his ears in pics, but here you can kinda see how his ears dont really match lol
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Blair/4e00ce9a.jpg

and shaved so you can see his is clearly merle down to the skin
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Blair/blair1.jpg

[sheplovr]

I am sorry I did not take time to read all that history, but I breed for red n black West German Shepherds from European countries I import, raise into adults and breed if they turn out like I want them. I believe in first of all temperment, pedigree, withing the SV standard then pigment. If well bred the genes come though on color check out ACE on my gallery. Awesome.:D

[Ceph]

Thats the great thing about genetics (and the annoying thing)...nothing I posted is set in stone....they find out new things every day :D When the book I got alot of this data came out the K locus was only a hypothesis (still is, but people are thinking it is more likley now I think).

I just read a blurb on AKC and it said that both brindles and merles were considered to be a part of the breed...it is quite possible to be both brindle and merle since they are controlled at different Loci (the brindle allele is either at the K or the Br Loci...different people have different opinions...:p) and merle is at the M loci.

lol, since you can only test for a few of the color genes it is hard to guess the colors in any dog....though I am curious why his color is so rare...:p....I am probably being dense cause I dont quite get it. ooo, and could you point me in the direction of those studies?!? I am hungry for more infor and I couldnt find anything in the journals I was using :p Thanks!

[BCNTC]

the info isnt posted, the study just started early last year, nothing pulic yet, just what they told us, they came and personally took Blairs DNA lol. it is possable to have both brindle and merle, but because they are both patterns, techinichly only 1 patten should be visable(EG brindle merle, the brindle is the base colour, the dog is merle but the brindle doesnt show through, it just looks muddied) the thing with Blair is that according to the testing he is NOT brindle merle he is RED merle. which means that the merle is not overlaying brindle and some of his brindle is showing through for whatever reason. rather his merle is breaking up red. and the brindle is well brindle..BLACK with brown streaks through it. by current knowledge he could be both brindle and merle but only as a brindle merle, he could not be as their research show, RED merle with random black brindle body parts.

[Ceph]

ooo, awsome....I look forward to reading stuff when it comes out :D

I think we need a new genetics book....:p

ooo...and I am going top try and draw pictures for what I have...lol, it'll burn some time this weekend while I am gone :D