DNA is not as simple as ABC
The nuclei of dog cells contain important genetic data. The dog has 39 pairs of chromosomes in each cell (39 from the mother and 39 from the father). One of these pairs determines the sex of the dog and the rest determine everything else that makes him or her unique. Chromosomes are made up of thousands of genes that carry traits inscribed in DNA (see article “Genetic Basics: Understanding DNA” for more information).
Genes have pairs of alleles (one from each parent) that are located at specific sites (loci) on a chromosome. When dogs breed, the mother and father each randomly contribute one allele from each locus, giving each allele a 50% chance of being passed on to the pups. One of the alleles at each locus is dominant and determines the traits, like coat color, portrayed in the dog.
Despite the huge variety in coat color, there are only two basic pigments that determine the color of canines: eumelanin (black) and phaeomelanin (red). All different variations in color are created by these two pigments, which are both forms of melanin.
Melanocytes are the cells within the hair follicles that add melanin to the hair as it grows and determine basic coat color. The more melanin, the darker the color. Melanin is not always produced at a steady rate, so the tip of a dog’s hair may be darker than the rest of the hair shaft.
Each of the pigments, eumelanin and phaeomelanin, has a “default” color that can be modified by various genes. Eumelanin is, by default, black pigment, but variation in color occurs because genes modify eumelanin to create other colors such as liver (brown), blue (grey), or isabella (pale brown). Genes essentially “dilute” the pigment into these other colors by preventing the production of full strength eumelanin.
Phaeomelanin is the second pigment that determines canine coat color. This pigment is red with a default color of gold or yellow. Phaeomelanin creates reds that range from deep red (Irish Setter) to orange, cream, gold, yellow, or tan. Genes control the intensity of phaeomelanin, making the color stronger or weaker. This pigment is produced only in the coat and affects only hair color, while eumelanin affects eye and nose color. Phaeomelanin in people is responsible for freckles!
Eumelanin and phaeomelanin in all their forms create a huge range of dog coat colors. White hair on dogs occurs when cells do not produce any pigment at all. Most of the time this affects certain portions of the dog’s coat. For example, you may see a colored dog with white markings. If eumelanin is not produced in the nose, the dog ends up with a pink nose. If eumelanin is absent in the eyes, the dog has blue eyes. Rarely, the entire coat is affected, resulting in an albino dog with red eyes.
Elle Di Jensen has been a writer and editor since 1990. She began working in the fitness industry in 1987, and her experience includes editing and publishing a workout manual. She has an extended family of pets, including special needs animals. Jensen attended Idaho and Boise State Universities. Her work has appeared in various print and online publications.
If you simply must know for sure what color of puppies your dogs are likely to produce, talk to your vet about DNA testing. A specific test will tell you if your light-colored parents carry the forms of the genes — also known as alleles — that will give them black or brown puppies.
Trying to grasp the genetics of dog coat colors can be difficult, but the basic explanation for two light-colored dogs producing a black pup is not as difficult: What determines the color of a puppy are his genes and how they interact with each other. Some genes hide others and some can alter the affects of others. There is a specific gene that can make a puppy black, no matter what his parents colors are, and it happens to be a dominant gene. So if both parents are light-colored but they both carry the dominant “black” gene, chances are good that one or more of the puppies will be black or display black markings.
Sometimes the physical characteristics of your parent dogs can give you a clue as to what coat colors their puppies will have. For instance if both parents have light-colored coats but also have light-colored eyes and pink or other pale-colored skin on their noses, youre seeing indications that they may not carry darker color genes. Alternatively, if either parent is light-colored with a dark nose and dark eyes, that parent is likely to be carrying genes that will result in puppies that are chocolate-colored or darker. Using this approach to determine what color your dogs pups will be isnt an exact science. Either parent can be carrying a gene that he or she inherited from generations ago that might suddenly push its way to the front of the line and color one or more puppies a shade that neither of the parents displays.
When a light-colored dog falls for another light-colored dog and they breed, the resulting pups arent necessarily going to be light-colored themselves. Genetics gets to call the shots when it comes to the color of pups that any dog has, and its not always the parents colors that show up in puppy litters. A color from generations back, like black, can pop up on any pup.
Can a puppy be a different colour to its parents?
‘B’ is dominant over ‘b’. So depending on the genetic makeup, if black mum and black dad both have a recessive ‘b’ gene (i.e. they are Bb), the puppies actually have a possibility of being liver (or another colour other than black) as they could get the ‘b’ gene from mum and dad, making then ‘bb’.
Mother Dog Reunited With Her Puppies All Grown Up | The Dodo Reunited
Puppies that are born black can definitely change to other colors as they grow older, depending on their coat genetics. Not all puppies will change colors, but certain breeds (or mixes of those breeds) will have genetics that causes their adult coat to appear different than their puppy coat.
Not all black puppies will change color, but some of them will! If you know your dog’s breed, that’s the best place to start when considering if your puppy’s genetics will lead to them changing color in the future.
In most cases, puppies that are born black and change color in the future will be a gray or “blue” color. Your black puppy won’t end up with a red merle color and pattern, but less drastic color changes often occur with age.
There are a few breeds that have more drastic color changes, namely the Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier. Dogs of this breed are born a very dark brown/black color, and over their first year of life, their coat will change to a light, golden, “wheat” color – hence their name!
When a black puppy changes colors, it’s much more likely that they become lighter with age, rather than their coat faded to a light brown like the Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier. It’s not something that should be expected with all black puppies, but is common with certain breeds and mixes due to their genetics.
For example, Labrador Retriever puppies that are born black will stay black as adults. Black, yellow, and chocolate are the 3 colors they come in, and the genetics of their coloring don’t allow a black puppy to change to chocolate or yellow.
Poodles, on the other hand, may fade from black to “blue” or “silver.” If this happens, the Poodle is said to “clear” and this process of obtaining a lighter coat may not be complete until 2 years of age! Poodles may stay “true black” and have no fur that has faded to another color, too.
One of the most common coat color changes that occurs with black puppies is for their coat to fade to a lighter version, appearing more gray than solid black. This change has multiple names, depending on the breed of dog.
Blue, gray, and silver are just some of the names for dogs that are a lightened black color, depending on the breed.
With all the different genetics at play with dog colors, and the different names for the same color across different breeds, it can sometimes be confusing to figure out what color to call your dog!
Some puppies may start to change color by the time they’re just a couple of weeks old, but most dogs will not develop their true adult coat until they are 1-2 years of age. It takes time for a dog’s coat to grow, and time for the coat to change from the puppy coat to the adult coat.
You might have noticed before that puppies often have texture changes in their coat as they age, even if their coat doesn’t change color. This is normal for many dogs across a variety of coat types, as they shed their “puppy coat” and grow the type of coat they will have as an adult.
It’s during this time that puppies often change colors, as the adult coat contains the pigmentation that is closer to their true adult color.
Sometimes this process appears dramatic when dogs grow a coat that needs to be clipped and cut rather than a coat that sheds out. While the outside of the dog’s coat may still have been the same color as when they were a puppy, the newer hair growth underneath may have been undergoing quite the change in color.
The best way to predict your puppy’s color is to know their genetics. In some breeds, genetics can be assumed based on the dog’s looks, or their phenotype. In other breeds, there are so many color genetics at play that may “hide” the underlying genetics, that genetic testing is required to find out the possibilities.
It gets even more complicated when you consider that multiple genes affect each other, and it’s not as simple as if a dog has gene Z or gene K.
Certain alleles (the versions of a gene that may occur) are dominant over others or will be expressed whether or not there are one or two copies of the gene. For example, the B locus has the alleles B and b.
Dogs, as with people and other animals, have two copies of each allele – one from each parent.
With the B allele being dominant over the b allele, a dog that has one or two copies of B – either BB or Bb – will be black. A dog that has two copies of the recessive allele, and is bb, will be brown.
Let’s look at that in a punnett square example! In this example, both parents have the alleles Bb, meaning they appear black, but carry a copy of the recessive allele for brown.
If we ignore any other genes at play for the moment, we can guess what colors the puppies will be from this pairing. While both parents are black, there is the possibility they can produce a brown (bb) puppy if the puppy receives the b allele from each parent.
Any other combination of alleles results in BB or Bb and the puppy will appear black, like their parents.
There are a lot of possibilities for color combinations in dogs, with “hidden” colors that can occur if genetic testing isn’t done. There’s far more genetics at play than we can cover in this article alone, but for more information, you can look at these resources from Embark, VCA Hospitals, and Animal Genetics.
Some websites, such as Paw Print Genetics, even offer a coat color calculator where you can input the genetics of the parents and see the possible outcomes for puppies!
Without knowing the genetics or breed of your puppy, it’s often a wait-and-see game to see if their coat changes color from black or not.
Dogs that are described as “black brindle” are dogs that have a brindle pattern that is barely noticeable due to the dark coloring of the dog. In a lot of dogs, brindle is fairly obvious black striping across a tan or red base coat, rather than a dark coat.
However, in some dogs, the black striping occurs over a lot of the dog’s body, giving it the appearance of there being lighter stripes across a black base coat. This is the case for Boxers that appear black – genetically, they don’t have a solid black coat, but they do have genetics for brindling and the brindle stripes are just so close together they appear black.
Dogs that are genetically black with merle are often called blue merle, due to the lighter color that results from the merle gene. Merle patterns are seemingly random patches of different shades of colors on a dog, rather than a solid color, and they may be with or without white.
The merle gene is a dilution gene that causes patches of a dog’s coat to appear faded – either black with “blue” faded sections, or brown with a lighter red or tan in the faded sections.
The specifics of the merle gene determine how much of the dog may be subject to this patchiness, so some dogs may have more solid black than others.