Can a dog carry a certain colour if it is only quite far back in the pedigree ie gt gt gt grandparents.I am waiting for the arrival of a litter and although i am hoping to buy a puppy regardless of colour( providing there is a show quality pup) it would be nice to get a  colour i have admired for a while but the breeder said that although the sire is the colour i like the mother only has it very far back in her pedigree,its her first litter.Is this possible or does it have to be not so far back to carry it? Thanks

In my breed chocolate popped up from farther back than the 5 generation pedigree and neither dog was choc. but must have been carrying the genes from their ancestors, there were 2 choc/tan pups in a litter of 6 and both had good pigment too

Possible yes, but you need any recessive gene to be in both parents lines for it to potentially pop up.
However the further back it last appeared if you include all siblings of the line the less likely it will pop up.  But it does happen, so as always its with the odd gods to what you get and then your favourite colour to be showable if it does pop out that is an even lower odds.

There's a saying that recessives are forever.... but you can guarantee if you want it to pop up, it won't ;)

Yes; my (liver) bitch had a mixed black and liver litter to a dog who everyone (except me, because she was mine!) had forgotten had a gt-gt-grandmother who had been liver. She'd been mated to a dominant-black dog and the liver hadn't been seen since, but obviously carried down the line.

the answer is yes they can, but whether they do or not is another matter... colour genetics are fascinating and my black (dominant) tri (recessive) bitch when mated to a brown (recessive) tri dog produced 8 brown tri pups... now I was expecting all tri (as both are tri) but not all brown... the bitch's parents are black/blue and so are grand and great grandparents... I did suspect she may carry brown as there was an 'unexpected' brown pup in her litter (sadly stillborn) but even so... her second litter proved to be more statistically correct - 3 of each :-)