Colour Genetics Books

[jonesyins14]

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Yippee, for my daughter - Annalese has finished her GCSEs today. Now what is she going to do? Does anybody know of a good whippet colour genetics book. We have read one by J Russell, but there must be others. It can be scientific but not a research paper! Any suggestions would be welcome. How lovely to think you have free time until September - oh to be young again.

Thanks

Kathy & Annalese :thumbsup:

 

[~elizabeth~]

Can't think of any others that are specifically about whippets, but the standard textbook for dog coat colours and patterns in general seems to be:

The Inheritance of coat colour in dogs, Clarence Cook Little

There is a basic explanation of how some colours and patterns are inherited in many other books, e. g Genetics for Dog Breeders, Frederick Hutt; unfortunately all these books are highly sought-after, fairly academic, usually out of print and thus terrifyingly expensive (all about £50+)

This page, if you haven't seen it already, is pretty good; if you read a general book on basic Mendelian genetics and terminology first, then the technical terms used here will be much easier to follow.

whippet colour genetics...

Good luck with the results. :luck:

 

[Seraphina]

I think the Clarence Little book is the absolutely best for anybody to get the basic understanding of colour inheritance.

The Whippet colour genetics website is excellent, it is "Clarence Little" in the nutshell and updated.

 

[malin]

The Whippet colour genetics website is excellent, it is "Clarence Little" in the nutshell and updated.

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I concur! AND the site has pictures illustrating different colours and patterns...

 

[jok]

I think i'll have a look at the website, i find the colours in Whippets so interesting.

 

[~elizabeth~]

That's what I'd heard too, I haven't managed to find one yet to judge for myself; certainly there is an awful lot of confusion evident regarding the genetics of blue and black (esp. recessive black (w00t) :wacko: ) and I wouldn't be surprised if this was the original source.

(Edited by Judy - This is a reference to an aricle in Joanna Russells Coloured Bloodlines.)

 

[Judy]

Clarence Little's is a good one and my favourite but its now thought to be slightly out of date just because opinion on which genes are actually alleles and which are on seperate loci changes from time to time.

Other good ones that contain a bit about coat colour inheritance are -

Genetics for Dog Breeders - Roy Robinson

Genetics of the dog - Malcolm Willis

Thye Genetics of the Dog - A. Ruvinsky& Jeff Sampson V.good but expensive and theres not that much about coat colours. The most up to date though.

How To Breed Dogs - Whitney (te title is slightly misleading in that its more about genetics than a "how to" book.

And the web site is really good too.

 

[Seraphina]

That's what I'd heard too, I haven't managed to find one yet to judge for myself; certainly there is an awful lot of confusion evident regarding the genetics of blue and black (esp. recessive black (w00t)   :wacko: ) and I wouldn't be surprised if this was the original source.

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Yes, I am sure that is it. All the people i had arguments about the recessive blacks in Whippet quoted that book. :rant:

"....black and blues. These two colours are known to be recessives which means that their colour can rapidly be lost to the dominance of the popular fawns and brindles." Then she goes on talking how many pups of which colour she got mating fawn or brindle to black or blue, and pointing out that the fact she got fawns/brindles from black to black or blue confirms that the fawn and brindle is dominant (w00t) . And as she never got black or blue from fawn to fawn/brindle mating that confirmed the fawn/brindle dominated the "colours". Similar misinterpretation is in the otherwise very interesting little book by E. Dagliesh Fitch. He points out that as he got solid black pups from fawn to blue mating the black must be recessive. What he did not understand is that the fawn was obviously fully pigmented, and that was where the black came from.

(Edited by Judy - This is quoted from an article in Joanna Russells Coloured Bloodlines but not written by her.)

 

[Judy]

Although I agree that that article and the Fitch Daglish book have caused some misunderstanding, if you have a look in the book, Joanna Russell did not write the article you are referring to. Sorry but I've had to do a little editing as it wouldn't be fair to let people think she wrote it.

 

[jonesyins14]

Thanks for all your comments and I must say that I thought it was impossible to get a black without one of the parents being black. (w00t) I thought this was the reason why there are so few in the ring! I think this could be an excellent topic for some summer reading. Thanks again and I will be looking up some of your book references. :cheers:

K & A

 

[~elizabeth~]

I must say that I thought it was impossible to get a black without one of the parents being black. (w00t)   

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It is UNLESS one of the parents is blue. If you cross pure fawn and pure blue (termed an F1 cross) you will get offspring that look black, but are actually not pure, true-breeding blacks:

If one were to mate 2 of these black-looking siblings together to produce an F2 cross, you would get the following ratio of colours:

With this in mind, it's impossible to know the full genetics of black- or blue-looking whippet unless you know the colours of the parents and grandparents, or have some offspring with a parent whose genetics are known. Bear this in mind when reading some of the books mentioned as misleading. It can cause a lot of controversy when breeders get colour combination from a match that they thought impossible, doubts start to creep in about the veracity of the breeding etc so it is worth getting to grips with.

Hope I haven't cocked this up :b

 

[beaker]

when i put my blue boy Alfie to my silver brindle parti girl Rosa i didn't expect black pups and was initially disapointed not to get the blue brindles i had hoped for

i never entertained the idea of having blacks, it was ''blacks... yuk!!''

''Oh great yet ANOTHER black has come out'' <_< :angry:

but after a couple of hours sitting there, watching them and falling in love with them, i decided i had got my opinions of blacks all skew

what do they say ''once you have had black you never go back''

sorry i went off topic a bit here

btw

alfie was the product of a black/blue mating and both his parents were also products of black to blue matings

Rosa is a plack pigmentated bitch her sire was a red brindle her dam a silver brindle (who also had black pigment) i've gone back 8 generations so far behind Rosa and have not turned up a black ancestor yet

am still looking though :thumbsup:

 

[~elizabeth~]

alfie was the product of a black/blue mating and both his parents were also products of black to blue matings
Rosa is a plack pigmentated bitch her sire was a red brindle her dam a silver brindle (who also had black pigment) i've gone back 8 generations so far behind Rosa and have not turned up a black ancestor yet 

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The same 'recipe' works for non-blacks that are brindle too (kbr), you'd still get blacks from blue x brindle if the blue parent is full blue, although all the blacks from this will carry a single blue allele.

When you say 'black pigmented', do you mean eyes and nose are dark (not dilute)? All whippets are thought to be dark pigmented in this sense (BB rather than bb which is liver dilution); the pale nose and eyes in blues is due to dd dilution; dd with kbr kbr is blue brindle. :unsure:

 

[Judy]

OK - its been pointed out to me that my editing needed editing so that the posts made sense - Sorry :blink:

 

[dessie]

OK .................... million dollar question

So what can I expect to get from mating a black dog (product of a red brindle x black) to a blue brindle bitch (product of a blue brindle x blue brindle parti with no black in either sire or dam line)??????

 

[kirislin]

OK .................... million dollar question
So what can I expect to get from mating a black dog (product of a red brindle x black) to a blue brindle bitch (product of a blue brindle x blue brindle parti with no black in either sire or dam line)??????

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Lots of puppies hopefully :clown:

Linda

 

[malin]

OK .................... million dollar question
So what can I expect to get from mating a black dog (product of a red brindle x black) to a blue brindle bitch (product of a blue brindle x blue brindle parti with no black in either sire or dam line)??????

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Depends a bit :b

Let's make an assumption to make it easier - none of the parents carry fawn.

if the black dog carries blue pigment (Multi CH Taraly Malcolm X is such a dog, from a redbrindle x blue mating) you could get:

- black

- brindle

- blue

- bluebrindleg

if the black dog does not carry blue pigment, you could get:

- black

- brindle

To be able to say more about white extension you would have to look a bit further in the pedigree. Malcolm X e.g. sires from solid up to 50% white. His son Macawe Watson dlM sires everything between solid and extreme white (naturally only if the dame also carries extreme white). Watson must have gotten his extreme white predisposition from his mother side which checks out if I follow her pedigree further back.

We can also predict how many pups of each colour you should get if the sample is large enough (12 something?!?). Half of them black/blues and half brindles. If the dog carries blue pigment the math says 1/2 of them will be blue/bluebrindles. But a litter is normally around 5 puppies and could just as well be 5 black/blues :wub: OR 5 brindles/bluebrindles

 

[Seraphina]

OK .................... million dollar question
So what can I expect to get from mating a black dog (product of a red brindle x black) to a blue brindle bitch (product of a blue brindle x blue brindle parti with no black in either sire or dam line)??????

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First we need to understand that that there are basically 2 pigments in dogs; BLACK and YELLOW (that includes all shades), with the white being absence of colour. All the different colours = basic body hair colourings is then determined by several different genes' interaction. Some dogs have then markings = mask and/or brindling. Then there are separate genes; one which determines whether the dog's black pigment will be FULL (black) or diluted = blue. Another dilute gene; again if it is Full (black) or diluted brown (liver, chocolate). These 2 dilute genes will dilute ALL black coat pigment be it the basic body colour, the black mask or black brindling.

BLACK is DOMINANT, that means that a black dog can carry any other colour, but you have to have at least one parent black to produce black. The black cannot be hiden by anything. But blue is just diluted black, so if you mate blue to fawn with black mask, you can get blacks.

So Dessie, if you have black dog carrying brindle (I am assuming that the red has black brindling?) and you put him to blue brindle bitch you can deffinitely get some blacks and black striped brindles. If the dog also carries the blue dilute gene you may get some blues and blue brindles, and if both of the parents carry fawn (non-brindle) you can also get fawns. But how many of each colours you get is totally matter of luck. Some people tell you the percentages, but that is the same as if they tried to tell you that you get half boys half girls.

 

[malin]

The black cannot be hiden by anything. 

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Not 100% true there is a very rare exception - black/blue can be 'hidden' by creme masking. I've met a creme masked bluebrindle particolour bitch in real life (w00t) :b (I know she is really brindle because of the puppies she has produced.) The creme masking gives the effect of liver coloured nose leather and eye rims, and the coat is a very 'washed out' fawn.

 

[Seraphina]

The black cannot be hiden by anything. 

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Not 100% true there is a very rare exception - black/blue can be 'hidden' by creme masking. I've met a creme masked bluebrindle particolour bitch in real life (w00t) :b (I know she is really brindle because of the puppies she has produced.) The creme masking gives the effect of liver coloured nose leather and eye rims, the fawn is a very 'washed out' fawn.

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Yes, you are right, but that is a very rare and I do not think anybody has adaquately explained these cremes. My wild guess is that it is an unknown diluting gene which dilutes everything. So what ever other colouring and markings genes this dog has they are not expressed. But as these cremes come from 2 normally coloured animals the creme must be recessive????

We would need to get 2 of these cremes and see what they produce to learn more.