What color eyes do albino dogs have? Tips and Tricks

They don’t actually have pink eyes

While albinism presents itself as pink irises in albino rabbits and rodents, the same does not apply for dogs. Dr. Stephanie Pumphrey, assistant professor of veterinary ophthalmology at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, notes that the true telltale sign of an albino dog would be lack of pigment around their eyes.

“Most dogs that are considered ‘albino’ have skin that appears pink around their eyes rather than pigmented skin, which can give the eyes a pinkish look,” Pumphrey says. While it is impossible to know whether a dog is a true albino without genetic testing, “most albino dogs will actually have blue eyes and pink noses.” Dogs with white coats and dark eyes or noses can sometimes be confused as albino, but unless they have pink noses and pink skin around their eyes, they are not albino, just white coated.

There are very few true albino dogs. For a dog to be considered albino, he or she must lack the genes necessary to produce melanin, the pigment responsible for skin and hair coloring. There are other coat patterns that can be confused for alibinism, however, such as merle and piebald patterns. These coat patterns result in something similar to albino, and most often occur in Australian Shepherds, Great Danes, Dachshunds, and Collies, to name a few.

“Merle patterning is inherited as a dominant trait, meaning that the dog only needs to receive a copy of the merle gene from one parent in order to have a merle coat,” Pumphrey notes. Albinism occurs more often when dogs have two copies of a recessive gene, she says, which will cause the characteristics of albinism.

How can you tell if you have an albino dog?

Without genetic testing, albino dogs can only be determined most easily by a close inspection of his nose and eyes. Like albino cats, the eyes and the tissue surrounding the eye sockets of albino dogs appear to exhibit a pinkish hue. The pink in both eyes and skin is not true pink, though. What seems to be pink is actually the result of diffused blood flow in these areas.

Dog and cat eyes are able to process a great deal more available light than human eyes. This is not only why they have far superior night vision, but also why their eyes appear red in flash photography. What we perceive as pink or red in any standard dog’s eyes is simply excess light reflected back out through the blood vessels in their eyes.

The pink of an albino dog’s eyes, nose, and the skin, especially surrounding the eyes and mouth, will appear to be very pale, even bleached out. An albino dog’s eyes themselves may retain some minor pigmentation, but this coloration, too, is pale or translucent in nature. The lack of melanin and pigmentation in a dog’s skin puts these dogs at higher risk, not only for sunburn, but also for developing skin cancers.

Some dogs may appear to be true albinos, but retain some pigmentation, which will be most noticeable on the nose or stomach. We can call this partial albinism, but there is actually a range of melanins, and as such, a wide variety of albinisms are possible and observable in dogs.

That said, in cases of partial albinism, dogs produce only a small amount of melanin, sufficient to produce limited coloration. With the exception of small areas of pigmentation, whether in eyes, skin, or coat, what remains will retain that extremely pale, color-drained appearance.

Animals get their coloration from a few different biological functions and cells that produce color on their skin, scales and feathers. Melanin is the organic pigment in people and mammals that produces the skin color. Melanin can be either eumelanin, dark browns or black, pheomelanin, reddish tans and blondes, and can work independently or together to create complex coats in some animals. Melanin is produced in melanocytes. Chromatophores are the cells which contain pigments in animals. These different pigments are responsible for the coloration in animals and can be any of the following based on the color under white light:

In the wild, camouflage is a huge part of an animal’s life. It uses this evolutionary trait to hunt and hide from those who hunt it. Without the correct pigments, the animals do not have their camouflage and stand out too much compared to the rest of their species. In some cases, albino animals have even been shunned from packs of animals or slighted when it comes time to find a mate because they do not have the proper markings like the rest of their group. If the animal does happen to find a mate and produce an embryo carrying albinism as well, this embryo is much less likely to be viable. This is another reason there are so few albino animals that naturally occur.

Albinism is a recessive trait; meaning two animals holding the recessive gene must mate to have a baby that is an albino. Therefore, it is rare in the animal kingdom. It is also rare because the survival rate of animals with albinism is much lower and doesn’t allow them time to reproduce.

While your dog isn’t fending for his life out in the wild, albinism can negatively affect your dog in other ways. First, albino dogs are incredibly rare, and you may not ever see a fully albino dog in person. Your dog will also have an extreme sensitivity to light and radiation. This will make your dog very susceptible to canine skin cancer and other light-related diseases. You must pay close attention to any sores or bumps on your dog, especially if he is out in the sun often.

Another unfortunate trait of albinism is that the animal has a higher risk of contracting canine melanoma. The melanin in your skin protects you from the ultra-violet sun rays and without this, the frequencies enter your body unmatched. This is why animals with albinism must stay mostly indoors or underground for the duration of their lives.

What do albino dogs look like?