# what would you call their coloring/markings?



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

I feel stupid for asking this but what would you call my dogs color/markings? First is my 2 almost 3yr old male Kenai:



















and here is my 6 month old female Kiva:




















So what do you all think?


----------



## WarrantsWifey (Dec 18, 2010)

I am not an expert but I BELIEVE, the first is Saddle Back, and the second is blanket back!

I have a sable, so I don't dapper in those coats often.


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I think the second will be a saddle back. She is only six months old. And she is already lightening up on the leg.


----------



## WarrantsWifey (Dec 18, 2010)

/\/\/\/\/\ Listen to that one /\/\/\/\/\ She knows!!!!!


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

Thanks guys  lol Just for fun(doubt it would help) here are pics of them when they were pups.

Kenai the day we brought him home:



























and now Kiva's turn:


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I think he's a sable. Could he be a sable? I thought maybe in the first pictures, but the puppy pic really looks sable.


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

The girly looks like a black and tan saddle back, all that red on the ears. Cute pups, good looking dogs.


----------



## elisabeth_00117 (May 17, 2009)

My first guess was a patterned sable and the second (right now, could change because she is so young) is a blanket black and tan.


----------



## Barb E (Jun 6, 2004)

The first pup is a saddle pattern sable, just like Dante


----------



## Barb E (Jun 6, 2004)

And actually the puppy pictures help a lot.

When I got Dante and had an argument with someone that he is a Sable I had to pull his all tan puppy picture to prove my point


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

Sorry if this sounds cheesy or corny but I am so thankful that I found this forum and you all!  I have been(and will continue to) learning so much! I have only had experience owning and being around a GSD once before having gotten these two. However the first one I had turned out to have some wolf in her but she had almost the same temperament/disposition and markings as my male,Kenai.Since owning these guys I have learned so much between my own personal experience,talking to other GSD owners and doing a bunch of research..Despite all that I never really gave a thought to what their coloring/markings are until my neighbor asked me earlier this evening.I felt kind of embarrassed that I couldn't answer him but I'm happy that when I see him outside again I can tell him and whoever else that asks and not feel like a dummy. lol 

selzer:thank you  I loved Kenai's color and markings when he was a pup..very unique to me..His sire was pure white and his dam had a long coat and was mostly black but what tan(or red maybe?) she had on her was so dark that it was almost black. There was 11 pups in his litter and most of them looked almost identical to kenai when it came to their color and markings..except the difference being the varying shades of the coloring.The females seemed to be darker..

barbh my gosh..our dogs could practically be twins  Dante is gorgeous  Thank you so much


----------



## KZoppa (Aug 14, 2010)

your first dog looks very similar to Shasta and she's a patterned sable. your second dog, though still pretty young, looks like she may end up being a saddly back but currently her patterning is blanket black and tan. She's still likely to change as she continues to mature.


----------



## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

Agree: Kenai is a patterned sable. Your pup is black and tan. May end up as a blanket back, or a saddle back, still too young to know.


----------



## KZoppa (Aug 14, 2010)

KZoppa said:


> your first dog looks very similar to Shasta and she's a patterned sable. your second dog, though still pretty young, looks like she may end up being a saddly back but currently her patterning is blanket black and tan. She's still likely to change as she continues to mature.


 
saddle back* haha not saddly back. its been a long day


----------



## Catu (Sep 6, 2007)

Castlemaid said:


> Agree: Kenai is a patterned sable. Your pup is black and tan. May end up as a blanket back, or a saddle back, still too young to know.


Saddle back, you can already see the black getting up on the thighs


----------



## Rerun (Feb 27, 2006)

Yeah the first is a sable saddle back, they do come in sable, and the second is definitely going to be a saddle back. At 6 months, way too light to be a blanket.


----------



## SunCzarina (Nov 24, 2000)

selzer said:


> I think he's a sable. Could he be a sable? I thought maybe in the first pictures, but the puppy pic really looks sable.


yes, Kenai appears to be a gold sable. Easiest way to prove that is next time he rubs up against you, examine the piece of fur. If it's got 3 different colors on it, in bands, he's a sable. He'll lighten up when he gets older. His puppy pics, oh yeah, sable!

Kiva is a black and tan saddle back. Her saddle will get bigger as she gets older. Saddle vs blanket back is determined by the patches of tan on her shoulders. A blanket back would have black shoulders.


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

I looked at Kenai's hair(his favorite pastime is to snuggle against me) and there are 3 diff colors in bands on the piece of fur/hair. Thank you all so much  I have learned alot from you all..Now I just have to explain this all to my hubby.lol


----------



## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Kenai's a patterned sable, the proof is the puppy picture. My female Kenya is also a lighter, patterned sable who has been mistaken for a black and tan:









Kiva is black and tan and given her age will most likely mature to be a classic "saddle" pattern. My Nikon had even more black than that until he was almost 1 year but as he matured it slowly receded. If one or both of the parents have less black than her now and more of a saddle pattern, that is probably what she will end up like. The sables go through all sorts of color changes, but the black and tans start out almost solid black and then slowly the black climbs up.


----------



## cta (May 24, 2011)

ok here comes the dummy to ask a very silly question. from what i understand, sables start out light as babies? is that the only way to tell the difference between a patterned sable and a black and tan with tan coming in in the black parts? if that happens, does that mean the dog's coloring is actually sable or it's just that it's a black and tan that's losing the black part of the blanket or saddle to lighter hair because it's going to just be washed out maybe? does that make any sense to anyone? lol


----------



## wolfstraum (May 2, 2003)

Barb is right - male pup is a sable with a pattern gene for saddle....other dog is a straightforward black and tan

Lee


----------



## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

cta said:


> ok here comes the dummy to ask a very silly question. from what i understand, sables start out light as babies? is that the only way to tell the difference between a patterned sable and a black and tan with tan coming in in the black parts? if that happens, does that mean the dog's coloring is actually sable or it's just that it's a black and tan that's losing the black part of the blanket or saddle to lighter hair because it's going to just be washed out maybe? does that make any sense to anyone? lol


Black and tan pups start out dark and then lighten...sables at 8 weeks are pretty light and darken when the adult coat comes in. But some are lighter(as in your case) I remember reading that what the sable pup is born with will be the depth of darkness as mature. They lighten/darken with seasons as well.

You won't know about the blanket or saddle unless you can see how the parents look or previous litters turned out. 
Bi-colors tend to stay exactly as they are as a pup, they don't lighten, but may get a bit more dark down the legs.


----------



## jetscarbie (Feb 29, 2008)

patterned sable? is that where the dog is black and tan....but the black has lots of different colors in it?

My male is black and tan....but his black has lots of beautiful colors mixed in with the black. When I brush him...his hair in the brush teeth are like a grayish color.

I'm almost amazed how much GSD's colors can change. My dogs look like completely different dogs from when they were pups to now.


----------



## robinhuerta (Apr 21, 2007)

1st dog is of sable coloring....2nd dog is black & tan colored puppy.


----------



## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

A patterned sable is a sable that has a black muzzle/mask and saddle, rather than being black/gray sable all over. For example if you look back at the photo of my patterned sable female you will see she has a saddle marking and has no black running down her legs or on her toes like most sables do. But she is still definitely sable and both her parents were sable.


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

Liesje said:


> A patterned sable is a sable that has a black muzzle/mask and saddle, rather than being black/gray sable all over. For example if you look back at the photo of my patterned sable female you will see she has a saddle marking and has no black running down her legs or on her toes like most sables do. But she is still definitely sable and _*both her parents were sable*_.


To the words in bold:Sorry if this question sounds stupid but do both parents have to be sable to produce a sable pup or pups?


----------



## RubyTuesday (Jan 20, 2008)

No, sable is a dominant allele. Both parents have to carry black & pass it on to produce a bvlack pup. Ditto B&T. However, a sable mated to a B&T or black can produce sables. IF the sable parent is heterozygous & only carries a single sable gene rather than 2 the offspring might or might not be sable. IF the parent is homozygous for sable, all pups s/b sable, unless both parents possess & pass on the white masking gene. (White is a masking gene & there are white GSD that carry & pass on sable.)


----------



## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

No, sable is the dominant color pattern.


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

no, but sable is dominant. All dogs have two color genes, and one is passed on to the pup, so if both sire and dam have a black gene and a sable gene they will both be sables, I think it is possible though for the parents to each pass their black gene to a pup, in that case both of the pup's genes are black. so the pup will be black. and that would be the same with all the other colors as well. But the chances are that at least one of the parents will pass on the sable gene. And if just one of the parents carried only sable -- received a sable gene from both parents, all the puppies it produces will be sables.


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

Ok,thank you so much! I was just asking out curiosity and because it made me wonder since Kenai's sire was white and his dam was mostly black but had some really dark tan/brown markings which were so dark that they almost looked black.Hubby said she looked like a really dark sable but his eyes aren't so good.lol The other puppies except for one (not including my boy) all had almost identical coloring to Kenai except they each were either lighter or darker than him..out of 11 pups the biggest looked like the odd man out because he looked like a black and tan..Sorry if I have confused anyone..I just am very interested in this subject and while it can be confusing(to me) its also fascinating..


----------



## robinhuerta (Apr 21, 2007)

From my understanding...one parent must be sable itself to produce a sable puppy.


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I think that may be true because if sable is present at all, the dog will be sable. So a dog cannot be black and tan and carrying a sable gene. It will be sable carrying a black and tan.


----------



## W.Oliver (Aug 26, 2007)

All the dogs I see look to be "as" Black & Tan with varying degree's of strength in the pattern. If the dog had the agouti/sable gene "aw", then one of the parents would/must be sable.....do you have the pedigree? ....if there is no sable sire or dam, then "as" they are because "aw" is dominate.


----------



## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

The sable coloring for Kanai may have come from his Sire. White is a masking gene that covers up the dog's 'real' colour and makes the dog all white. This is an extra colour gene in addition to the regular colour genes that non-white dogs carry. The sire may have been a sable with a white masking gene, so that that the white hides the sable colouring.


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

I emailed the people we had gotten Kenai from(it was bugging me that much) and my husband was right..His dam is a sable..a really dark sable.Shows how much I pay attention  
And now my female is having something odd going on..well it will probably turn out to be normal but it seems odd to me..Anyways, yesterday I noticed that when I ran my hand down towards her hips from the middle of her back,a lot of wiry black hair came out and the hair underneath is really short and is a mix of black,tan and a teeny bit of white/silvery hair...Hubby thinks that she is getting rid of her puppy hair.I checked to see if her skin was irritated and it looked normal.The hair up by her shoulders is still jet black and its thicker.. So I'm wondering if my hubby might be right..Here are a few pics(sorry they aren't the best,it was hard as heck to get her to hold still):

Her bum









she is sitting down in this pic









Her shoulders are at the top of the pic and hips of course are towards the bottom where her hair is changing



















Now that I am looking at the pics,the coloring change looks more prominent in person than in the pictures so thats a bit frustrating.lol simply because I know I'm not going crazy and it has me a tad worried.


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Yes, that is the exception to the sable parent. Forgot about that even though it was mentioned somewhere.


----------



## RubyTuesday (Jan 20, 2008)

> From my understanding...one parent must be sable itself to produce a sable puppy.


Yes, unless it's a white GSD carrying sable which is hidden by the white masking gene.


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

*hmmm...*

All of a sudden I noticed that Kiva looked...different..She isn't shedding hardly at all right now and here is what her coat NOW looks like.lol ETA: really makes me wonder what she is going to look like when she is an adult...

What she looked like about a week or two ago:









and here is a pic of the same area that I took yesterday:





























I hope I am not being annoying by posting so much about this..I just find it fascinating and I am hoping to learn a lot from it too... So what do you think is going on? Is she getting rid of the rest of her puppy hair/fur?


----------



## Freestep (May 1, 2011)

Looks like she is getting a "bitch stripe" which is where a strip from the neck down to tail along the center of the back turns grizzled. Many bitches have it and even some males, especially if neutered. She'd still be considered black & tan.


----------



## MicheleMarie (Mar 29, 2011)

it's also shedding season. i don't know what a bitch stripe is **goes to google**


----------



## middleofnowhere (Dec 20, 2000)

Bitch stripe is a lightening of hair from the withers down the center of the back.


----------



## cowgirlup_22 (May 11, 2011)

Thanks guys


----------

