Nose Pigment And Dewclaws

I am not sure why no one has replied to your query, but perhaps I can get the ball rolling. Nose pigment in puppies that are blues/creams etc. can be quite light when they are new born, but most will fill in as the pup grows on. Many pups still have a speck or two of light pigment for many months - four or five months even after birth and this is not uncommon even with dogs of rich coat colours.. Nose pigment is covered in many national standards and requires that it ultimately be dark -- be this a dark slate or black. I have seen creams in the UK that have a nose that is more like a weimarner colour than the dark colour I associate with whippet noses and I would guess that these would be severely penalized in countries where blues and dilutes are not favoured (such as Canada but in the USA especially). There is definitely discrimination over here against dogs with 'light' eyes (translation -- not black as coal), unusual coloured noses, mottled coloured pigment around the mouth and even coat colour (creams and dogs euthemistically referred to as 'dilutes') but the coat and eye colour though addressed in the breed standards does not call for disqualification. Still it is like pushing rocks up hill to show a blue fawn or blue brindle dog here with these dreaded light eyes (we still do it and we still success because as you know, The UK whippet standard, for a breed after all developed in the UK, says coat colour should be immaterial). In the USA the breed standard speaks explicitly to these factors and results in pups with 'unacceptable' colouring being sold off as pets no matter how good the quality of the dog.

Most whippet breeders in the UK, the USA, Australia, and Canada remove dewclaws when the pups are a couple of days old. However, there is an increasing movement in some countries to prohibit the removal od dewclaws, despite the fact that a running beed like a whippet risks serious injury with intact dewclaws, especially if coursed through gorse. I live in Canada but have had two whippets, both born in Denmark, who came to us with dewclaws, because vets will not sign the health certificate there for these dogs to be registered unless the dewclaws are intact. I showed both dogs to their Cdn.Ch. titles with no difficulty, and not even a comment by any judge examining them about the dew claws. I understand Germany is now amongst countries on the continent considering requiring that dewclaws be kept and this is likely to cause a domino effect in adjacent countries in Europe where exhibitors routinely move from country to country exhibiting their dogs. I am hoping it does not go through because I consider dew claws on whippets a genuine danger to them in terms of the potential for injury. I know of a number of such instances here in Canada, though none were our dogs as we remove dew claws. However, I also owned three show greyhounds bred in Canada who had their dewclaws, not for any other reason than the fact their breeder did not wish to spend the money with large litters of these dogs having them surgically removed from 2 day old pups. Again these were show dogs and there was no problem -- except for the fact one of the girls loved to race and so she also lure-coursed for us. We vet wrapped her dew claws when she was coursing with no problem. Unfortunately the dew claws were not protected when she was just running at home in our fields and she had a hugely nasty accident with one dew claw that resulted in a very expensive surgery because of the resultant serious damage it caused to her leg. That was an $800 surgery to remove the problem dew claw from the adult dog, and not at all a happy thing for Boo, the dog in question, or for my wallet at the time!

Lanny Morry

Avalonia Whippets in Canada

 

Whippets can be shown with dew claws.

 

Here in Australia we have number of top show dogs being shown with dew claws.

When you say nose pigment, are you talking about the pink spots? Most pups that have white around their nose will be born with lot of pink on their nose, but it should fill in by the time they are couple of months old.

Here are 2 girls from my last litter, first at week or so, next at 4 weeks and then 2 months. You can see how much the pigment spread.

 

week

 

4 weeks

 

2months