# B&T with a LOT of white



## m1marty (Aug 28, 2013)

Had a buddy send me some pictures of his 1 year old male. I right away noticed the huge amount of white on the dog. It's not a light tan as you can see the split from white to tan. He said the sire and dam are both BTs.....not sure how this came about. While I have seen white spots/socks- I haven't seen a coat like this. Thoughts? Perhaps a white dog further back in the breeding?


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

That is just a very faded tan. Some dogs have strong tan pigment that looks reddish, some have very light tan pigment that looks cream/white, and some dogs have a mix of dark pigment and light pigment - the lighter areas are called bright points, I believe, and has nothing to do with a dog having a white ancestor. The white comes from a recessive White Masking Gene, and it's all white, or not. The White Masking gene is a separate and ADDITIONAL gene to the color genes, so it does not affect the amount of colour a dog inherits, but will mask the colours and be solid white if they have inherited two of the white masking genes.


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## m1marty (Aug 28, 2013)

Thank you for the reply. I haven't seen this much faded tan on a dog with a clear split between the white and tan. After talking with him- it's a very bright white....no cream to it.


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## m1marty (Aug 28, 2013)

Well, looking at his paperwork it appears this dog does indeed have lots of white dogs in his pedigree. Guess that explains this particular dogs coloring.....


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## Anubis_Star (Jul 25, 2012)

m1marty said:


> Well, looking at his paperwork it appears this dog does indeed have lots of white dogs in his pedigree. Guess that explains this particular dogs coloring.....


It's a faded tan. White dogs do NOT contribute to this coloring, as already said white is a masking gene in german shepherds (meaning a white german shepherd is normal colored - black and tan, black, bicolor, etc, with basically a giant white "spot" covering the entire dog)


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## Kahrg4 (Dec 19, 2012)

Anubis_Star said:


> It's a faded tan. White dogs do NOT contribute to this coloring, as already said white is a masking gene in german shepherds (meaning a white german shepherd is normal colored - black and tan, black, bicolor, etc, with basically a giant white "spot" covering the entire dog)


This. Totally agree.


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