Purley

There is a woman in my agility class that knows everything there is to know about dogs!!! No matter that the only dogs they have are cross breeds - she still knows it all.

We got into a discussion about different colours. The agility instructor has a black Standard poodle bred by a well known Canadian judge. I said that I was at the fun match yesterday and there was a woman there with a nice looking silver Mini. He said he had never heard of a silver. I said I assumed it was some kind of a dilute of probably a black gene.

Then this know it all woman starts saying that silver poodles are cross bred with some other breed (she mentioned a Schnauzer!) to get the silver. And now you can get a silver Lab that has been achieved by crossing them with Weimeraners.

Of course, the woman actually knows diddley squat about colours.

So, just for my own satisfaction - is there a really good site that explains about colours genetics. And some specific questions because I know colour is really complicated.

Are all poodle colours supposed to have black pigment - noses etc. or is it acceptable in some colours to have brown pigment?

What is the difference between cream and apricot. I have seen photos of dogs on here that I think are called apricot, but their bodies look what I would call cream and their ears are apricot.

Do apricots fade and then are they called cream??

What about brown and silver beige. What is the difference between a bad brown and silver beige?

littlestitches

I worked with a woman like your know it all. Some of the co-workers started up a conversation about an imaginary breed just to see what she would say, of course she was an expert on them...... it was petty to do, but we did have a good chuckle.

Best of luck in finding the information you need.

Paula

Quossum

A fascinating topic to me, as well. I love listening to know-it-alls, even if it's with a small internal smile. You can usually tell within minutes whether they're the "teachable" type of know-it-all or not. Oh, the ideas some people have!

Try this for a quite technical discussion:
Color Genes in the Poodle

Another technical genetic discussion:
Some coat colors of poodles studied using DNA testing

Cool pics of the solid colors:
A page at Moondance Standards

Cool pics of the non-solid colors:
Another Moondance page

This site is one of my favorites for reading about colors. I'm directing you to the first page about color breeding in general, but if you look on the left, under "Information on Poodle Coat Colors," you'll see links to pages for each color family and detailed (and fascinating) explanations about those colors. Tons of pictures.
Apreggio Poodles, color breeding info

Hope this helps!

--Q

ArreauStandardPoodle

Well, browns have brown noses and lips. Apricots and reds can have brown noses and lips. It is allowed in the standard of the breed, but not desirable. All the other colours should have black noses and lips.

Silver beige and cafe au lait have only lately become acceptable and only recently do you see them in the ring. Most browns fade, so I presume it was a matter of making lemonade when given lemons. The standard does say "any solid colour" so it seems reasonable enough, but when I was a kid, breeders always sold the lighter puppies to pet homes regardless of anything else about the dog.

Creams and apricots are two separate entities, although if an apricot fades, it is easy to then call them cream. Another case of making lemonade. An apricot's coat should be a lovely, even colour, with yellow tones. Cream is just that...a rich creamy tone. The ears can take some time to clear.

The links Quossom gave you are fantastic and very educational.

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AgilityIG

I don't know squat about colors in poodles, but had to LOL about your expert. We have one here too amongst our dog friends. She is very nice, but knows everything about everything (not just dogs ). She's one of those that you avoid sitting next to if you can help it.

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outwest

My puppy is a cream. If you look at the color of my puppies shaved muzzle it is a creamy white in this picture of her at 12 weeks. That's the color her body is supposed to eventually be. At 16 weeks old, her coat has lightened a few shades already from this picture, but still has a light orangey tint. Her nose is black, but she has cute apricot colored hair (mascara) around her eyes. Her ears should stay with some apricot color and maybe a little across her shoulders. Creams don't get shown much, but I think it is pretty. Here is a closeup of her face at 12 weeks. She is lighter than an apricot:


Here is a cream that is older (5 or 6 months?):

CharismaticMillie

I can tell you about browns!!

Brown, cafe au lait and silver beige are all within the same spectrum: brown. Brown, Cafe au lait and silver beige dogs will all have liver points. The points of a silver beige or cafe au lait may be a lighter shade of liver than a brown, or might not.

A bad brown is different from a cafe au lait or a silver beige. A bad brown will grizzle or silver out. A Cafe Au Lait is a gorgeous color in itself and clears in the way a blue clears. Eventually, the coat will be an even shade of light brown. The entire coat clears. A dog that appears cafe au lait due to lots of light hairs mixed in with dark hairs is not a cafe au lait. This is a bad brown. Cafe Au Lait breeds true. Cafe Au Lait bred to Cafe Au Lait results in Cafe Au Lait.

Cafe Au Lait can be confused with a bad brown much easier than a silver beige. A silver beige is very obvious and a beautiful color.

A silver beige clears similar to the way a silver clears. Eventually, the entire coat will be a very, very light and the tips of the ears may have a tinge of beige to them. This top photo is Shane, a famous Silver Beige poodle. Alegria Poodles.

Kai is a handsome and obvious example of a silver beige in the process of clearing. Kai, silver beige miniature at 11 1/2 months. Before and after groom Notice how Kai has a light to medium shade liver nose.

Look at the color of Millie's tail in this photo. See how it is an even color? Compare it to the darker brown color of her bracelets on her legs. If her entire body ends up the color of her tail, then I'd call her a Cafe Au Lait. If her whole body doesn't clear evenly to this color, well, she's just a faded brown. Only time will tell.

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ArreauStandardPoodle

Keith just sent me a link to this boy this week. STUNNING dog! But not too very long ago, he would have been laughed out of the ring. Personally, I am glad this all has changed. He is H.O.T!!!

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Purley

Somewhere or other - probably on the Alegria site, there was a picture of four puppies I believe. One was Shane and he was a lot darker when he was little. I think colour discussions are really really interesting. Colour genetics I am sure are very very complicated but still its nice to find out about it even if you never grasp the whole subject.

That woman gets up my nose!! My agility instructor is very laid back and she takes advantage by taking over his class and telling people what to do. Mind you, it bugged me more than it bugged the instructor!!

The whole discussion started because I mentioned the Standard Poodle that is in Lucy's agility class. This dog has a very clunky head; a tail that curls up like a pug's and it also has white front feet and white on its chest.

Just to enlighten you - this "expert" told me that the dog is not a standard poodle. According to her, there is no such thing as a black and white poodle. The dog is crossed with a Portugese Water Dog!!

So there -- now you know. All you poodle people with partis -- they don't exist!!

I think the dog is probably a standard poodle of sorts -- an unregistered "bad" standard poodle. By bad - I mean a very poor example of the breed. The kind of dog that comes out of bybs and their unregistered dogs. But what the heck do I know!!!

I love to learn from people that really know -- people like her drive me nuts!!

lavillerose

I've been obsessed with color genetics in animals since I was a kid, when my family raised goats and I had one that was incorrectly colored for her breed (I never won a class because of that, but I loved her anyway!). That's translated to horses and dogs, but if I've learned one thing for sure, it's that color genetics are freaking complicated!.

Silver Beige and Silver are genetically similar. I'm not completely sure if it is the same dilute gene acting on black vs brown, but it appears to work that way, the pups are born dark and clear to a mid to light silver on black, and to a mid to light silvery beige on brown. Shane of Alegria that was linked above is probably the quintessential example of the light silver beige. He was the first mini (possibly first of any variety? I don't remember) of that color to not only achieve a championship, but also the first to be #1 in the country!

I'm still confused about Cafe au Lait, myself. Every single website and book I've seen says specifically that you can't predict cafe au lait on a puppy, and yet, they all show a photo of a puppy when referring to that color! I want to see a good photo of an adult, fully cleared Cafe au Lait, but I'm assuming it's an even, light creamy brown with no hint of silvering.

Really nice apricots are hard to find in my opinion. They should really be a peachy color, whereas creams should be like buttermilk, a couple of shades off white. A lot of apricots seem to fade out and become a little too light, making it hard to tell the difference between that and cream.

And reds, oh reds! I am glad to see more breeders really working to produce healthy dogs that hold their red color and getting better textured coats on them. I've dreamt of having a deep red poodle for ages.