A dog with a tan point pattern has a solid base color with white, yellow or red markings on the muzzle, eyebrows, chest, underside, lower legs, and under the tail. Although this pattern is also called black back or black-and-tan the base color can also be liver, blue, or lilac. What is a Black Back … Read more
A dog with a black saddle has solid dark coat on his back and large tan markings covering his face, chest, shoulders, legs and underside. Dogs with saddle pattern are born with regular small tan points that soon grow to form a saddle tan pattern. What is a Saddle Pattern? Some dogs born with a … Read more
Agouti is a pattern with banded hairs and dark hair tips on the dorsal area and lighter markings on the dog’s underside, muzzle, eyebrows, and chest. This phenotype is found in many wild animals and is also called wolf grey or wolf sable. What is Agouti? Agouti causes a banded coat along the dorsal region … Read more
A dog is shaded yellow or shaded sable when he has a white, yellow, or red base coat with dark-tipped hair in some areas. Sable shading is concentrated mostly on the dog’s back and often causes a widow’s peak on the forehead. What is Shaded Yellow? Shaded yellow or shaded sable describes a coat with … Read more
Dominant yellow (also known as clear sable or fawn) describes a phenotype with a white, yellow or red base color in all pigmented areas and little to no dark-tipped hairs. What is Dominant Yellow? Dogs with a dominant yellow have a solid white, yellow or red coat in all pigmented areas. In contrast to a … Read more
The A locus interacts controls when and where phaeomelanin or eumelanin is expressed. Different allelic combinations may cause a clear sable, shaded sable, agouti, agouti saddle, saddle pattern, creeping tan, tan points, or recessive black pattern. However, A locus expression also depends on the K locus and E locus. Pattern Legacy Testing New Testing Terms … Read more
The E-Locus defines how much eumelanin can be expressed. Different alleles can cause melanistic masks, domino, grizzle and cocker sable phenotypes or recessive red coat. E-Locus Overview The Extension-Locus was named a long time before genetic testing was available. It got its name because it can extend the amount of black to yellow pigment in … Read more
Recessive red (ee) causes a dog to only produce phaeomelanin in all pigmented areas. Since the color intensity ranges from white up to yellow, orange and red this causes a variety of phenotypes. Many dog breeds with solid white, yellow or red coats are in fact ee-red. What is Recessive Red? Usually, pigment cells can … Read more
The eH allele at the E-Locus causes an interesting phenotype in Cocker Spaniels that either resembles a regular sable pattern or is described as a dirty red color pattern. A version of domino similar to eA or eG in other breeds actually causes both of these phenotypes. What is Cocker Sable? The eH variant found … Read more
The eG allele at the E-Locus modifies any regular coat color pattern by reducing eumelanin and increasing phaeomelanin production. This causes different new phenotypes mainly found in sighthound breeds where it is mostly known as grizzle or domino. What is Domino or Grizzle in Sighthounds? Domino changes any background pattern by decreasing eumelanin expression and … Read more