Hi all

Someone mentioned to me the other day that colour of a dog can make their temperment different.  Its never crossed my mind before but I must admit that my chocolate Shar Pei is a big loony compared to my fawn ones!

What does everyone think?

A contentious point :) but I think it is true.  We were warned that orange roan Cockers were noiser and flightier and, maybe it was a self fulfilling prophesy, but it has turned out to be the case and I know others that are too.  When you think about it the colour gene has arrived from some distant ancestor into the mix so why shouldn't it have arrived with something different about that ancestor than the others.  My friend has a Newfoundland and I remember the breeder telling us the Landseers were quite different characters due to the spaniels that were introduced to bring that colour.

Now I think the opposite, I have 4 orange roan cockers, 1 blue roan, 1 black & white......I find the BR & B&W are twice as noisy as my OR........my OR's are calm, placid and NEVER fight, maybe I've just been lucky ;)

Just to clarify my orange roan would never fight :) she just gets more excited about things than the blue roans I have known.

:-D  That made me laugh about the Orange Cocker!  My mother has Cockers, Blacks, Black and White and an Orange roan, I have to agree entirely with you, she is extremely vocal, infact I was convinced she was part Jack Russell, as she acted so much like one vocally, I have my mum's dogs over to stay a lot when she jets off on hols etc, and the colours IMO have different traits altogether.  Although the orange roan is vocal she is extremely placid and laid back temperament wise compared to the others.

How interesting that the colours could be the reasoning, I don't doubt it a bit.

It is more likely that different bloodlines have different characteristics, and colour is just a side effect.  The differences between some blue roan or black cockers (the popular colours) are likely to be as great as between them and other colours.

ive got an orange roan boy and he is as placid as they come. my sister has a blue roan and she is a hectic maniac!!

becky

Hi, I'm not sure about this, never heard anything about it before however, if it is true it will be interesting to see how my 6 month old CKCS will turn out being as he is a ruby red headI'm intrigued and will follow this post very closely.

Hayley x

I find the colours have different traits in my breed mainly because the different colours are different bloodlines.

luvhandles, if your Cavalier has a ruby head, what colour is the rest of the dog?  Is it a heavily marked blenheim?

>because the different colours are different bloodlines.

Yes, there could be a number of factors that make this possible.
:) I think she means a "redhead" in the human way in this instance.

LOL! No.......he's all ruby! I was referring to him as a 'red head'. Sorry if I confused.

Hayley

Ahh, I see. :)

hi just thought id say ive got an orange roan cocker and he is the most wonderful dog you could ever wish for, so laid back, i actually think he is a bit of an odd one though because i dont know any other cockers of any colour that are as laid back as mine!

becky

Yes, I only mean in general terms.  I know a couple of laid back ones too. :)

What about border terriers?  Mines a red grizzle and he really is a "hot head" and he most certainly does whinge and grizzle.  Gorgeous dog though :)

CG

In both my breed colour seems to have a marked effect on temperament.  With the American  Cockers, the parti colours are very different from the solids, delightful, but much more "high maintenance" and over the top!  With pugs, the blacks are considered to be much livlier and naughtier than the fawns, and now I have a black I can verify this is true, too :)
bye
Gwen

I read an article that said black Labs are steadiest and easiest to train, yellows are next and chocolates can be stubborn airheads that are very hard to train.  I thought that this was some kind of doggy raciism but when I mentionned it to my Vet and our boarding kennel they agreed, though of course there can be exceptions.  Seems it has to do with what is the most recently developed colour in that breed and what other traits and attributes were sacrificed, or inadvertently reinforced, in order to get that colour.

Liver nosed Ridgebacks are said to be different from black noses.  Don't have personal experience of living with a liver, all mine are black noses.

Hi ridgielover,

Ive heard the same about liver nosed are suposed to have differnt temperament than black nosed, but i have a liver nose RR and never owned a black nosed so i wouldnt know either.

Regards,
Marti

www.martiridgebacks.piczo.com

My choc lab is stubborn.  She doesnt always come to me when I call her.  But on the other hand she is a very sweet natured dog and not boisterous at all like a lot of the chocs.  I do think though that the Blacks are the easiest to train.  The breeder had 2 blacks and they said the same.  You just have to look at the whole character of the dog.

I think we have probably reached a concensus on this :) not as contentious as I thought ;)

The Belyaev fox experiment might be of interest, has anyone heard of it?

In the 1950's, a man was selecting for tame foxes for (sadly) a fur farm. Effectively selecting for short flight distance :)
In just 18 generations he had "tame" foxes - however, although he had not selected for them, he also had foxes who were piebald, had floppy ears, barked, and generally displayed pretty much puppy behaviour.

So it seemed that selecting for a behavioural trait could change physical appearance; it is also believed that selecting for physical appearance can change behavioural traits :)

It would certainly explain a lot!

Lindsay
x

I have a theory that eye colour reflects temperament - the darker the eye the better the temperament - all the dogs I've known with light eyes were a real handful  - at least in my breed !!!

Yvonne

You have to be careful about making assumptions on certain characteristics though or else you'll end up with self fulfilling prophecy.  Easily and inadvertantly done if you think that a certain colour will result in a certain behaviour.  You might treat that animal accordingly rather than the same as others you expect to be better behaved.  I am not saying that colours do not reflect certain traits though because I have heard this before regarding Labs esp Chocolates that are supposed to be more difficult although still endearing.

Not dogs I know but we had budgies and when my kids chose a white one the owner of the aviary said whites were "strange".  We had 3 and the white one who we had first we were never able to tame even though we had him from a baby.  The 2 colours we had a little later were much more normal and how you would expect a budge to be.

So Yvonne  if your theory is correct does this mean that all breeds that have light eyes as part of the breed standard have dodgy temperaments then?

Said the Weim owner :D

She did say in her breed :) 

Actually I was also thinking of collies, huskies etc etc etc ;)

I would think it goes back the lines being bred from wouldn't it?  In my breed the eyes start off light and it is preferable that they finish off quite dark.  If they don't then surely this is just another characteristic passed down from somewhere in the line.  If my junior attempt at genetics is right the colour of the eyes is irrelevant as it could just as easily be the darker eyes that have dodgy behaviour if the line with dodgy characters is dark eyed.  Hope that makes sense as getting in a tangle here.

in BCs, i dont think coat colour or eye colour or nose color,or ear carriage,or the number of white feet,or the white tip (or not to the end of the tail,or the lack of white on the face,makes any difference at all!

Completely agree with you michelle although there are lots of stories about different colours. I wish I had a pound for everytime I was told not to get a merle (by agility people!). Sol has turned out to be the easiest dog to live with and train. He picks things up really quickly and remembers them and he isn't the least bit scatty and certainly doesn't have part of his brain missing........... LOL :-D I have also been told the same things about red/brown and white collies as well as the fact that they are apparently all temperamentally unsound:rolleyes:

theres only one thing i believe in & thats "naughty spots"!
all BC peeps know what they are!!!!!

Naughty spots? Yep, got one with LOTS of those, very pretty he is too and incredibly cheeky and naughty. You can catch him in the act and he will just look round the room and then roll his eyes round to you and grin like he is sooooo innocent. He is so sweet I can never tell him off, maybe that's is why he is so cheeky, gotta admit he does make me laugh:rolleyes: I think it's cos he has so many spots he has to try and use them before he is too old, he is 4 1/2 and is still nearly as naughty as when he was a pup although he seems to have stopped eating toilet rolls now................. :-D

Colliemad, sounds like your dog came out the same litter as mine. :)
Tell me about naughty spots. I was conned by my breeder of my dogs. After having my first bitch. Lots of them. Got the second dog, no naughty spots, thought I was safe. Till I looked at the bottom of his paws when I got him home. Loads, and the rest came out later. :rolleyes:
I have been told that Merles are harder and Reds can be a bit loonier although my friend and I have two brothers same litter, one r&w, one b&w. Both as mad as each other.
Don't agree with this eye thing at all, especially in my breed. My breeder breeds for the dark eye but others I know breed for the lighter eye. Still all nice dogs. Good breeding and good owners makes a dog. A friend of mine has a merle, one light blue eye, one dark brown eye. Does that make the dog a schitzophrenic TIC ;)

LOL Kelly's front legs are covered with black and brown mottling, his back legs have brown mottling and his face is covered in black again where the white should be. There are so many "naughty spots" that you can't see where one ends and the next one starts except under his chin where they are obvious spots. He even has spots in his tail and around his ruff ROFLOL. I have not found my merle to be harder, in fact he is easier, but what I have noticed about him and others from the same line is that they appear to have a desperate need to please you. Sol does agility and if he thinks he is wrong in training he will just go off on one and do half a dozen contacts or tunnels just to show me that he can at least do that right! We worked this out fairly early on so now when I correct him I call him back to me first put him in a sit and reward him for that and then start again. I have seen several others that do the same thing, both in the ring and out of it and I think that is why they are considered to be harder, their owners just don't understand them.....:rolleyes: :-D He is red merle though and is definitely a looney.....:-D :-D

My lightest eyed cream Spanish I'd say is the easiest to train obedience wise.  Her daughter, my first brown and white is a nightmare!  She's just too intelligent for her own good and wants your attention 24/7!  My black and whites do seem to be more laid back, so it does make me wonder.  Maybe that's why everyone wonders why mine used to be so calm whilst theirs were all running rings around them :d

Looks like someone may be getting their own back on me :d

My blue roan cocker was so laid back he was positively horizontal! Unlike the two lovely but extremely wicked little orange cocker sisters that a friend of a friend owned. But then they were the doggie equivalent of the Kray Twins so it would be entirely unfair to suggest this was down to colour alone.

Yvonne - how about the black ones? I've always found them to have more attitude in our breed, but I like 'em that way. :D I do think it's possibly more to do with the bloodlines as I've found the old tale about the coat types having different temperaments not to be totally true.

Hi

What about golden cockers that seem to have a split personality. I have always put this down to bad breeding as they became very popular at one point and lots of Dodgy people were churning them out for money rather than temperamemt.

Also white GSDs, I have heard they are more nervy and highly strung. I know one that is but I have also met black and tans who are to.

A lot has to do with how they are raised to, Maybe certain colours as in the cocker are favoured more as pets and are raised the wrong way, just a thought

Wendy

Regarding Cockers I think you are probably thinking about Rage syndrome.  If you have a look at this link it will help you put it into context.

I used to be a dog groomer and we always used to say different colours made a difference to breed temperment, to be honest I never thought of breed lines being the cause. Light cloured beardies were always highly strung, as were lemon cockers, as were apricot poodles, these are the main ones that I remember, where I walk I have encountered numerous very aggressive black labs, which is a shame, luckily some are muzzled, and sadly the choc lab has a bad reputation here......I presume thats an aggressive breed line, rather than the colour black.