# Color questions



## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Is this a sable German show line? (same dog both pics)


















How about this one?









Is this dog a sable or a black and tan/red? (same dog both pics)



















Sometimes it's hard for me to tell! I'm trying to learn exactly what is what.


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## DancingCavy (Feb 19, 2001)

First one I can't tell. He looks more like a black/red than sable. I bet if you found his sire and dam you'd know for sure.

This guy:








is definately sable.


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## DancingCavy (Feb 19, 2001)

Well, the first guy's sire is Timo:








who is definately a sable. So I guess checking parentage isn't helpful at all in this case! Unless, of course, Timo is homozygous for sable. Then all his offspring would be sable too. Which they're not. So. . .I still don't know without pulling a hair from that first dog's coat.


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## EastGSD (Jul 8, 2001)

Yes, sable show line with either more intensity than his sire OR a photog that increased the contrast on the photo









Here is his sire
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/20964.html

Here is the showline male's ped
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/133576.html

The first dog appears to almost have a blanket back pattern.....some sables will even have a saddle pattern like this American Select Alvin
http://blcardis.com/joelle/alvin.asp


Cherri


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## DianaM (Jan 5, 2006)

http://www.margman.ee/?id=3&keel=ee
Headshot of Margman Torsten, the first dog posted. Looks sable to me. I love to see showline sables! And this guy is just gorgeous. What a face.

The dog doing the B&H and the retrieve over A-Frame is a toughie. Looks like a very nice black and tan but I'm probably wrong on that.


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## DianaM (Jan 5, 2006)

Kindasorta OT, but man, Torsten's a beauty and a half! Check out some of his progeny: 
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/472198.html
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/420619.html
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/448615.html (VERY dark face)
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/420618.html
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/495569.html
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/495558.html

I guess there's no question now, Torsten's a sable. And man, does he ever reproduce color/pigment well. All of you know I'm not a showline fan, but this guy's got me regardless.


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## DancingCavy (Feb 19, 2001)

Looking at his headshot, I'd definately agree Torsten's a sable. Why didn't I think to look for more photos of him?







Eh well.


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## Calipso (Jan 10, 2008)

Maybe someone could clue me in on what the difference is between mixed black coat versus a sable? I was thinking sables were mostly black.

My puppy is black on top with a black/off-white underbelly and cream/tan face markings and legs.


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## tracyc (Feb 23, 2005)

You're describing classic black & tan saddle markings. 

Sable is two different pigment colors on the same hair shaft--light at one end of the hair and dark at the other. 

There are both light and dark sable dogs.


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## Calipso (Jan 10, 2008)

Well I'll be. I never knew it was possible to have a single hair shaft with two colors on it. That's weird.


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

This dog is a sable, and he's more the traditional unpatterned type than some of the sables pictured in this thread that have clear saddle type patterns to their coat.

I don't have any close up photos of individual hairs, but if you look closely (particularly at the ruff around his neck and shoulders) you can see what Tracy is talking about with individual hairs being different colors. Where the black markings are the hair isn't entirely black all the way through, it's tanish at the base, with black tips at the ends.


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## Calipso (Jan 10, 2008)

I can't really tell with mine yet. She still has her puppy coat. She's probably a saddle coat. But I have noticed the brown areas are getting more visible. When does the adult fur kick in?


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

Sables are very easy to tell when young puppies. 

They are a grayish brown with bits of black here and there, not the usual solid black body with small tan markings. They tend to be darker at birth, then lighten a lot over the next few weeks, then go through phases of being darker/lighter while they have their puppy coats. With patterned sables it can get harder to tell with age, whereas it's obvious when young.

If your dog was/is grayish tan as a pup, it's a sable. If it was/is mostly black as a pup, it's black & tan.

Photos of sable puppies:


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## tracyc (Feb 23, 2005)

To further complicate matters, many (most?) saddle-back dogs have some sable areas on them. Luca is an American-bred dog with classic black and tan markings, but he has a patch of distinctly sable hairs between his shoulders. 

I don't know, but suspect that sable is the "natural" color of the dogs and that the segregation of the dark and light hairs in the the 2-color dogs is due to selective breeding for that pattern.


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## wolfstraum (May 2, 2003)

the first two ARE show sables.

the third and fourth - probably a saddled out sable - I know the field and the helper - who is the dog? that looks like photo that I should know









Lee


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

> Originally Posted By: Luca_stl Luca is an American-bred dog with classic black and tan markings, but he has a patch of distinctly sable hairs between his shoulders.


This is called a "Bitch Stripe", though it occurs in both males and females, being more common in neutered males than intact ones. It develops as the dog ages, often completely absent when young and expanding as the dog gets older. It's not related to sable and the patterns to the hair shafts are different. I've heard many times that it is related to hormone levels impacting melanin expression in the hair. Not sure if that's really the case (it's not something I've put much effort into finding out). But it is unrelated to sable.









Bitch striping can also occur in sables too. It's just less noticeable since the whole dog is usually more variable, without a huge field of black on their back.


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## Catu (Sep 6, 2007)

Oh boy!! those pups...









Since we are in the subject: There is a way to know in a B/T pup what the pattern will be? (heterozygous sable parents, so they are of no help)


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

> Originally Posted By: LicanAntaiOh boy!! those pups...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


At birth, not really. By the time they're old enough to go to new homes around 8 weeks, usually but not always.

The darker the parents (evey with sables), typically the darker the pups. But that's just "typically", not always. 

So I bet that really didn't help much.


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## SimplySleepie (Apr 28, 2005)

I'm curious - if tarheels and toe penciling is bicolor trait, why is it so common in the darker sables? Ghost has both tarheels and toe penciling and I've seen many pictures of other sables that also have these marks.

Kris


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

Hard to explain... but just because a trait is commonly found in certain colors doesn't mean it's exclusive to that color.

Yes, tarheels and toe penciling occur in most bi-colors, but they're not really a "bi-color trait" in the sense that they don't help define the dog as a bi-color. And thus they can occur in other colors as well.

They appear to be inherited separately from general color and pattern. Either they are linked somehow to the colors for sable and bi-color and are inherited together, and unable to link with B&T genes or (more likely IMO) the genes that cause the B&T color do so by prohibiting melanin expression on the legs, which would prohibit harheels and toe penciling too and explains why B&T dogs never have tarheels or toe penciling, while other colors can. Blacks might carry tarheels and toe penciling as well.. we just can't see it.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

> Originally Posted By: Wolfstraumthe first two ARE show sables.
> 
> the third and fourth - probably a saddled out sable - I know the field and the helper - who is the dog? that looks like photo that I should know
> 
> ...


I don't know who the dog is. I have a GSD screen saver and I was trying to add more SchH pics (have a lot of portraits and stacked dogs). I googled "Schutzhund GSD" or something like that and was saving the images I liked. If I find the site again I will see if it says the dog's name.


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## Catu (Sep 6, 2007)

> Originally Posted By: Chris WildHard to explain... but just because a trait is commonly found in certain colors doesn't mean it's exclusive to that color.
> 
> Yes, tarheels and toe penciling occur in most bi-colors, but they're not really a "bi-color trait" in the sense that they don't help define the dog as a bi-color. And thus they can occur in other colors as well.
> 
> They appear to be inherited separately from general color and pattern. Either they are linked somehow to the colors for sable and bi-color and are inherited together, and unable to link with B&T genes or (more likely IMO) the genes that cause the B&T color do so by prohibiting melanin expression on the legs, which would prohibit harheels and toe penciling too and explains why B&T dogs never have tarheels or toe penciling, while other colors can. Blacks might carry tarheels and toe penciling as well.. we just can't see it.


Could then be that if we see a sable with tarheels we could guess that it's phenotipically a sable that carries the bi-color gen or simply tarheels are a genetically different trait that we just can't see in black/tans but appears in every other colour?


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

> Originally Posted By: LicanAntai
> Could then be that if we see a sable with tarheels we could guess that it's phenotipically a sable that carries the bi-color gen or simply tarheels are a genetically different trait that we just can't see in black/tans but appears in every other colour?


Nope.

Tarheels and toe penciling in sables do not indicate the dog carries bi-color. They can occur in any sable. I've seen them in dogs that are homozygous sable, sable/black, sable/black&tan, and sable/bi-color. Though they seem to be most prevalent in sables that are sable/black or sable/bi-color. Many consider them to be indicators that the sable carries black recessive, but that's not always the case.

Tarheels and toe penciling appear to be inherited separately and are not indicative of a dog of a particular color, or to that dog's genetic make up. They occur often in sables, regardless of what other color that sable carries. They appear to always occur in bi-color. Never in black and tan. And of course we don't know about solid black.


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## Catu (Sep 6, 2007)

Thanks Chris, I love to squeeze knowledge from you


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## Emoore (Oct 9, 2002)

> Originally Posted By: Chris Wild
> This is called a "Bitch Stripe", though it occurs in both males and females,


I prefer "angel wings."













edit: j/k, I know that it's actually called a bitch stripe, but we call Rocky's his "angel wings."


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