# colour issue in pups



## deeshy (Oct 30, 2015)

I have read about genetics in german shepherds but to be honest some of it is quite confusing. We have a black bitch who had a litter of pups before to q black and tan resulting in a mixture of black and tan and all black. In her second litter we used a different stud dog who was also black and tan but when the pups came half were all black and the other half were all white. I'm trying to find a way to explain in laymen terms to people who wouldn't understand genetics a bit like me lol. Can anyone help


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

In the first litter, sire, a black/tan, must carry the black recessive in order to get black puppies. Obviously he passed on his b/t gene or his black gene to a mixture of the puppies. The dam, being black, could only pass her black gene.

In the second litter what you discovered is that both the dam and the sire also carry white. White is found on a different allele and is recessive to colors. Since white is more of a blanket covering the dog's true color and not really a color in of itself, how the pups will produce in the future will depend on what other genes they inherited. The white pups could be b/t or black under the white blanket. Sire must also carry black. The fact that you didn't get any b/t in this litter is just due to a roll of the dice.


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