Coat Colour Genetics

Remember that some colours have a masking effect:

• Silver will mask
• liver which will mask
• “ee” red (fawn,lemon) which masks
• black which will mask
• sables/tricolour

How To (or not to) Breed Silver

• Is a recessive trait – needs 2 copies of “d” allele and not affected by patterning
• Silver to silver matings will only have silver pups
• Silver to other colour matings will produce all silver or silver carrier pups.
• The mating of 2 silver carriers will result in 1/4 of pups being silver and 1/2 of remaining pups will be carriers.
• Assume it takes at least 5 gens from the last silver dog (either mating or pup in a litter) to have completely removed silver carriers from the bloodline. Won’t be 100% accurate, but close enough in most cases.

How To (or not to) Breed Browns, Livers or Liver Tricolours

• Is a recessive trait – needs 2 copies of “b” allele and is affected by patterning
• Brown to brown matings will only produce brown, liver tricolour or silver pups.
• In order to get liver, a chinchilla (cch) allele is needed to lighten the coat – these are found in fawns, lemons, blk&tan. Breeding a brown to one of these will increase the chance of liver.
• Tricolour is recessive, the easiest way to ensure liver tricolour is to breed 2 together. Otherwise 2 known carriers will produce 1/4 tris.

How To (or not to) Breed Reds

• Is a recessive trait – needs 2 copies of “e” allele and is not affected by patterning but can be diluted
• Red and White is seperate and distinct to red sables – R&W will hide tris and sabling and B&W
• Red to Red will only produce silver, brown and red
• They don’t carry cch allele – therefore they won’t produce lemons or livers, only fawns
• They are rare in current gens – I am attempting to revive the colour

How To (or not to) Breed Fawns and Lemons

• In order to lighten the coat from a red or red sable, a chinchilla (cch) allele is needed -these are found in fawns(1 copy), lemons(2 copies), blk&tan(1 or 2 copies). Avoid matings which put these colours together – use red, blk&red or red sable dogs.
• Remember it is stepwise – red dilutes to fawn and fawn dilutes to lemon. Breeding lemon to red is the lesser of 2 evils when deciding between a fawn or red stud to a lemon bitch
• Remember the “recessive red” lemons and fawns will hide B/W and all L&W and F&W will hide sables and tris

How To (or not to) Breed Black and Whites

• Hides sable and tris, but is a dominant allele, unlike all previous colours – therefore a pair of B&W can produce all colours
• Is not affected by dilutions – so therefore can hide cch – watchout for lemon offspring from any colour mating or fawns from red, red sable or blk&red matings
• If has produced offspring that are any form of tricolour – is carring tricolour

How To (or not to) Breed Red Sables

• Caused by recessive at K and Dominant on A, D, B and C
• Masks tricolour only
• Red sable to red sable will only produce blk&red, red sable, silver and brown

How To (or not to) Breed Black/Red and Black/Tan Tricolours

• Caused by recessive on K and A and Dominant on D, B – C can go both ways
• Tri to tri will only give tri, “ee” red, silver and brown/liver
• Blk/Tan has one or two copies of cch gene – will produce fawns and lemons and blk/tan from matings to red sables, as well as silver, red and brown/liver
• Blk/Red has CC – will only produce red sables and blk/red, as well as silver, red and brown/liver

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