when breeding flat coats in your experience when usually is the liver gene lost.  my bitch carries liver but was used with a dog who is only black will it be possible for any of her pups to be mated to liver dogs or carriers and produce liver? i ask just out of interest as i did want to use a liver dog but opted for the traditional black.  also as a point of interest with yellow or non standard flat coats do both parents have to carry the gene and how many generations can it skip or lie dormant, i was going to use a black dog but i did find out he had a few yellow pups, and decided not to, should i have been worried? as i did think most yellow flat coats had been bred out.
sorry to ramble on but i hope you can offer opinions.

Your pups that have a black father, assuming he does not carry liver, will get a black gene from him but if your bitch carries liver statistically half of her pups will carry liver to ( only you will not know which ones). The pups from this litter will therefore will all be black but half will carry liver and 1/2 will not. If those pups were then mated to a liver half of them would have 1/2 black and 1/2 liver pups the other half would have all black.
Amos

You can get your flatcoat DNA tested for colour, but I would be more worried about the health and temperament of your bitches pups than the colour. Why not join the flatcoats@yahoogroups.com forum, there are a lot of very experienced breeders and owners there who would be of great help to you.

Yellow flatcoats have always been around, they are a non standard colour, but this does not make them less healthy or less likely to have the nice temperament expected of a flatcoat. Anyway I am digressing from your original question. This was answered at great length recently on champdogs and I am sure if you search the threads here you will find that particular debate. Everything that could be said about this topic was said there.

If you would like more information about the yahoogroups forum email me or send me a private message.

Regards
Polly & Foxpath Flatcoats

My last FC litter was from a black bitch who is by a liver dog out of a black black (so my girl carries the liver gene).  I mated her to a pure black bred dog. 
They produced 4 black pups, 3 of which have been colour coat tested.  The dog from the litter carries liver, and the 2 bitches are pure black (none of them have yellow :) ).  The other girl is in a pet home and has been spayed, but I may get her tested just out of curiosity!

If you mate a black bitch carrying liver to a solid black dog, you should get half the pups solid black, and the other half Black carrying liver.

In theory this works; in practice it's sometimes different - maybe because some pups are re-absorbed in utero; I'm not sure.

The only way to be sure is to have a vet-gen colour test, as Polly says, and this would also tell you if the pups carry yellow.    Yes, both parents have to carry yellow for it to show.

Personally, if I really seriously liked a particular dog for whichever reason, and knew it carried yellow, it wouldn't stop me using it at stud, but would  get my bitch checked for colour first.    You should have other priorities in breeding than colour  - temperament, work ability and construction as well as breed type are more important.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats