A question to those experts our there. I have a litter of pups now 10 days old .
I black and 4 black and white . 3 of the particolour pups have pink noses and
paws like dad but one has a black nose and paws and through the white
hair black hair is growing through . Could this pup be a roan .
Regards Sally

What breed?

and what colour are their pads?

Hi,

It is too early to tell at this young age, it can sometimes take weeks even months for the roan to come through properly. You will often see breeders advertise their dogs as possible roans, as it can be so hard to judge. Though if you can see some black coming through the white already, you may very well have a roan. Then again your pup may just be loosing it's white, and becoming more promently black. What breed of dog are they?

If we're talking Cockers, a 10 day old pup with totally black pads & nose is a roan - black & whites retain pink pigment on their pads (and sometimes noses) into adulthood.

Jane

Sorry .yes I have English Cockers . The paw pads are totally black like the nose .I am in no rush to know as they are still young , and although  I  have a list of 3 resevations they have not actually picked yet so I will hold her back until last .Here in Mallorca there are a lot of solids and particolour
but I do not know of a roan to compare her with .I am quite excited as the grandfather named Tajmahal oliver twist  is maked on the pedigree as roan .I should wait and see .

A follow-up question on cocker genetics if I may :

My in-laws have a working-type cocker that I would describe as a mismarked solid black, with a faint blaze on her face and white on her chest. However, her 'white' chest is a mottled black/white mix, like a blue roan. Does this indicate that she is either roan or carries roan?

Her litter-mates were a similarly marked dog pup along with three black and white parti-colours. Her dam is a liver and white parti-colour (who had roan siblings) and her sire a solid black (possibly slightly mismarked)

Additionally, with a liver & white dam, would she definitely carry a liver gene?

I never seem to be able to get to the bottom of marking & colour inheritance in working cockers, as the working breeders have no real interest in colour & markings (other than a general bias against 'springer markings') and the show breeders rarely mate solids to roans/particolours and never breed from mismarks.

This is really more of an academic question, as if she is selected to breed from, any potential sire would be chosen on its previous progeny, working ability temperament and pedigree far more than colour or markings.

Hi Havoc

She is (probably) genotype Bb Ssp Tt
Black pigment carrying liver, solid (with minor mismarking) carrying piebald, ticked (roan) carrying no-ticking.

Julie

edit: the "probably" refers to piebald and ticking genotype as modifying genes can influence expression on those but no doubt that she is a liver carrier.

Julie,

Thanks for that. Whilst I'm sure there are rules at work, working cocker litters seem to throw up lots of surprises with colour & markings. Is there any reference that explains (in fairly simple terms) what the possibilities are?

Havoc one of the best sites I have ever seen to explain this is http://www.felsteadgundogs.com/

I couldn't get to grips with the colour predictions when I had my litter and putting a blue roan who came from a lemon and black to a liver and white who came from a solid liver and black, resulted in purely black and white pups!  We aren't disappointed as they were all gorgeous but it's amazing they were all the same given the variety of colours that could have had an input.

You are right, colour is the last thing on your mind when breeding from working strains.  JaneS was also an excellent source of information too.

I remember Jane telling me that you could predict a roan from the colour of the pads, hence my earlier question!  (I just couldn't remember the whole story!!)

Hi JJ

Had a look at that site and I wouldn't say it agrees with generally accepted ideas on colour inheritance!

Julie

In breeds where you have lots of colours it's not easy to give possibilities in simple terms unless the lines are restricted to certain colours as in the show lines but I know that doesn't happen with the workers so you are more likely to get surprises :-)  Also many of the colour genes are still up for debate so even the experts get it wrong sometimes.

The only webpages I know that calculate possibilities are on very simply breeds (in colour terms) like Labs.   Probably the best site on explaining the basics of colour is -

http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/Genetics/ColorGen.html

Julie