elstrong

I'm relatively new to breeding and am loving it. Today my red girl, Roxy had a black puppy(my fourth litter). This is the first time I've bred red poodles(toy) and can't find alot of info about them. At least I can't find the answer to my question.

How did 2 red poodles breed and produce a black puppy? I have 5 generation research pedigrees on both of them and there are not black poodles within 5 generations. Is it because, further generations back there must have been at least one black poodle?

Thanks for any input.

Eleanor

ArreauStandardPoodle

This is going to sound like a really stupid question, but are you absolutely certain both dogs are red? Could one be brown? My matriarch's first breeding, prior to me owning her, she was bred to a brown. She is red. Because both of these colours are recessive, she produced a litter of ten black puppies. This is a puzzle.

__________________

peppersb

There is a very interesting chart here:
VetGen Colour Test - Poodles in Scandinavia

Note that when they say cream, they mean red, apricot, cream or white.

The chart suggests that a red (or cream) BBee bred to a brown bbEE would produce an all black litter. Blacks are also possible in other brown-red breedings. But interestingly, the chart indicates that if a cream (e.g., red) is bred to a cream, the result will always be cream. So I am also wondering if it is possible that one of your reds is genetically a brown? I don't know much about this, but find it interesting. A lot of forum members know a lot more than I do. Maybe they have comments?

zyrcona

Hi Eleanor. Red is a recessive colour, so it's not possible for two red dogs to produce black puppies. The parents are both ee and a black dog would have to be Ee, so there's nowhere for the E allele to come from. ArreauStandardPoodle's suggestion that one of the dogs may be brown (cafés can sometimes have a very reddish appearance while they are clearing) may be true. The only other explanations I can think of are that there is a mutation of the e gene to E (extremely unlikely, although not impossible) or very unfortunately that an unknown black or brown dog may have got to your bitch while she was in heat without you knowing. You can get a genetic paternity test to confirm or disprove this if you are concerned.

elstrong

Thanks ArreauStandardPoodle, peppersb and zyrcona for responding.
I talked to my vet, who talked to a long time breeder of reds. He told me that now and then breeders of reds would mate a black poodle with one of thier reds to keep the points a dark black and darken the red color. This may have happened in the generations beyond what the parents pedigrees show. According to him my black puppie is called a black-factor red. He suggested that she would be invaluable to my breeding program because she has the red genes.

Another possibility - I found that in the fifth generation of my sire's pedigree there was a brown poodle. Could that cause the black puppy? I don't know.

I do know that I was very careful to let the females out to potty separate from the males. The rest of the time my males were in a pen. The back yard is fenced in and I go out and watch them when their outside. My female could have gone out without me as we have a doggie door. But they usually go out as a group with me (it's a big event!) and again my back yard is fenced in and beyond it I have a couple of acres. I have not seen a stray dog in the 10 years I've lived here.

I think I like my vets explanation best. what do you all think?

Eleanor

peppersb

Zyrcona's explanation is the one that makes the most sense to me and it is quite consistent with the chart that I found. Two red parents would both be ee. So neither of them could contribute the E that is necessary to make a black puppy. I don't think it matters how far you go back in the pedigree. Two ee's cannot produce an Ee.

My puppy is cream and both of her parents were black. So she got both e's from parents that were Ee. That makes her an ee. If she was bred to another cream or red (ee), she could not produce a black even though both of her parents are black. I'm pretty sure that's how it works. Zyrcona who has studied this much more than I have could correct me if I'm wrong.

lavillerose

My parent's black Spoo Pepper had a Red sire and a Brown Dam, who the breeders said always threw black puppies.

That confused me too, especailly since my parents swore up and down the female was red as well, but I guess she was simply a very red toned brown (or my parents just don't know the difference). And looking back in the pedigree, there's black not too far down the line on both sides (along with ever other color under the sun!) But black is always dominant in dogs, so if its there somewhere, it'll usually show back up.

CharismaticMillie

This is something interesting and quoted from VetGen that seems to explain the black puppies in these red breedings:

"For example, if your results show that your dogs genotype is a Type Bbee, your dog is cream, white, apricot or red and has a black nose, the dog is carrying the hidden genes for black and brown. If you were to mate this dog with a dog of the genotype bbEE, on the average, half of the Litter would would be black and the other half of the litter would be brown. "

http://www.poodles-in-scandinavia.com/vetgen.htm

So, my question is, was one of the "red" parents of liver pigment? If so, likely this is a brown. I can attest to the fact that some browns appear very similar to liver pigmented reds.

__________________
Happy tailwags from Peckerwood's Thoroughly Modern Millie, CGC and Ch. Safari's Specter, CGC!

elstrong

Lavillerose I thought what you said. If the black is in the genealogy it can pop up. So I've been researching. While it is true that ee and ee will not produce Ee or EE, if there is an EE in the DNA, from any ancestor, it can pair with the e and show up as Ee in the offspring. Any color that is in the background of a dog can show up. They are called hidden genes. I have a quote from VetGen that says just that.

VetGen DNA CHROMAGENE Coat Color Testing

..... Due to the complex interactions of these genes, it is possible for dogs to carry hidden colors which may appear in their offspring.

That is the reason that a child may have great-grandma's red hair even if neither of it's parents have red hair. One of the parents carries the gene, which he or she got from hid/her grandmother, for red hair. That gene can take it's place in the pairing at any time and if there are 2 of them, produce red hair in the person who inherits those 2 red hair genes.

I guess I should have done the research instead of asking others to do it. I was just so shook up.

Eleanor

elstrong

Thanks Chocolate Millie,
I checked out the link you provided and could see how a black and red mating could produce what's called a black/red hybrid carrying both e and E and BB or Bb. If the hybrid is then mated with another red, now the 2 e's and b's needed to produce red offspring are present and the E. That ofspring, though red would still be carrying at least 1 E(a hidden color or gene) and every generation after her would carry the E. All you need is one E to produce a black offspring and that E could pop up in any pairing. Since there are so many b's and e's in the mix the more generations of reds are added to the gene pool, the more likely the matings would produce bbee or red. But you never know when that hidden E will pop up in the pairing of genes from each parent. And when it does you have a black puppy.

That's what I got from that link. Am I right? or just more confused