Countershading

If your dog has a lighter cream underside compared to his red upper side, he likely has some form of countershading. This is a pattern found in many animal species including dogs.

What is Countershading?

Animals with countershading have a much paler underside compared to the red on their upper body.

This type of coloring represents the wild type in dogs and many other animals. We don’t know the function of countershading is^[2]. A common theory explains countershading as an adaptation that counterbalances the body’s shadow and provides camouflage^[1].

See, an animal that is lit from above casts a shadow. This creates a contrast between top and bottom and makes it easy to spot. Having a pale underside counterbalances the shadowing effect and decreases contrast. This helps to blend with the background. So countershading in wild dogs, wolves or other species is thought to improve background matching and reduces the dog’s contour.

But countershading might have different or additional functions. Maybe more pigment on the upper side simply gives more protection from sunlight. But we really don’t know for now.

Countershading in Dogs

Countershading only affects the red pigment type (phaeomelanin). In dogs with countershading, the red pigment on the underside turns paler compared to the red pigment on his upper body.

Some hue variation is considered normal in about every red dog. But countershading causes an extremely low intensity on distal parts of the body and extremities.

Countershading looks like the dogs has cream markings on the lower half of the muzzle, cheeks, eyebrows, lower jaw, throat, forechest, belly, inside of the legs, and the underside of the tail. Although in some dogs, it doesn’t create very pronounced facial markings.

Many different dog breeds have countershading. In some breeds, it just occurs occasionally or is not sought after. In other breeds, countershading is a required trait and part of the breed standard. Japanese breeds like Shiba Inu or Akita call their very defined countershading Urajiro.

Countershading can appear pale yellow, cream, or off-white. In some cases, it is very bright and refined with crisp edges. In other cases, the pale coat gradually blends into the red next to it.

So countershading may be loud or subtle. And of course, it stands out more in dogs that produce dark orangey or red pigment on their upper side. If a dog has a low phaeomelanin intensity all over its body, we can’t really see pale countershading next to an already very pale coat.

There might be different versions of countershading or different modifier genes we don’t know about. This might cause differences in the intensity and spread of countershading. But for now, we still know very little about the genetics of countershading (there is an Urajiro Research group on Facebook).

Countershading Examples

Countershading can only be visible in patterns with some amount of red pigment. This includes patterns like sable, shaded sable, agouti, saddle pattern, or tan points with or without brindle.

In some cases, the lighter markings may be hidden by other patterns a dog has.

This can happen due to white markings. Or heavy brindle may cover up all the areas with red pigment. And Northern domino or sighthound domino often go hand in hand with pale phaeomelanin and can obscure the original color gradient between the dorsal red and the ventral cream colors.

Many breeds with countershading have a black mask (like German Shepherds). This can also cover much of the countershading on the face of the dog.

Urajiro

Shiba Inus and Japanese Akita are known for their very bright and refined countershading. Urajiro is the term many Japanese breed standards use for countershading. It can be translated as “underside white“.

But urajiro is not always super crisp. The term was originally used to describe any form of countershading and is also used in breeds with less pronounced patterns like Kishu. Urajiro can have colors between beige and creamy white, have different spreads and can have crisp edges or blend into the red coat.

Countershading and Sable

In solid red dogs, the effect of countershading stands out the most.

Countershading and Agouti

Agouti causes dark-banded hairs on a dog’s dorsal body but leaves solid red areas on the ventral body, e.g. lower muzzle, above the eyes, and on the legs and belly.

Countershading adds a color gradient inside the red pigment from bottom to top. Agouti with countershading gives a very wolf-like pattern. This combination is common in breeds like Siberian Laika, Saarlooswolfdog, Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, Tamaskan, and German Shepherds.

Countershading and Brindle

Brindle adds vertical stripes of dark pigment on top of any red areas. It covers some of the countershading pattern which is then only visible in-between brindle stripes.

Countershading and Tan Points

Countershading only affects red pigment, remember?

On a tan point pattern, only the tan markings are affected. Usually, the lower jaw and throat have a much lighter color intensity than the tan right next to the black nose bar and above the eyes.

Countershading and Saddle Pattern

Dogs with creeping tan or a saddle pattern have large areas of extended ventral tan. So countershading usually is easy to spot in these patterns (and looks very pretty, dare I say so).

Countershading and Recessive Red

Dogs with a recessive red coat don’t seem to express countershading very well. They never have a csrisp edge can only have a mild gradient from more intense red on the upper body and a paler underside.

Countershading Look-Alikes

Not every dog with a dark top and a light bottom has countershading.

For example, these patterns are not caused by countershading:

Dogs with a shaded sable or agouti pattern have dark pigment on their upper body and clear tan on their lower body. This is not countershading, if the red color is the same all over the body.

An overall light phaeomelanin intensity in domino patterns can make a dog look lighter than expected. It often causes very pale “open face” markings. However, domino removes eumelanin from a pattern while countershading can only reduce phaeomelanin intensity.

Some white markings on the chest, legs, and muzzle can look like countershading in long-haired dogs. But white is caused by a true lack of any pigment and does not affect red colors.

Learn More

Links

[1] Cuthill IC, Sanghera NS, Penacchio O, Lovell PG, Ruxton GD, Harris JM. Optimizing countershading camouflage. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611589113

[2] Rowland HM. From Abbott Thayer to the present day: what have we learned about the function of countershading?. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2009;364(1516):519-527. https://dx.doi.org/10.1098%2Frstb.2008.0261

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