right a lady on fbook has a AB that is fawn and white with greeny/browny eyes (if that makes sense) she was told he was rare and carried the blue gene due to his eye colour ... neither parent carried the blue gene but a grand parent did .... is it possible he has the blue gene ??? she was told blue is rare in the breed but ive seen a few advertised for sale :/ ..... aparantly she got him cheap as the bitch fell again on her 1st season after her pups :(

someone recomended some good books ect for me to read can anyone tell me what they were ? i would like to look further into colour genetics

If the dog is a very pale fawn (cream) then yes it is possible it may be a blue-based colour... Blue dilution changes black to a 'blue' grey, red to cream, and black-striped brindle to a pale brindle with grey stripes.

I don't know if blue is rare in ABs or not.

If neither parent carried a gene for blue, then this dog can't be blue - or does she mean neither parent is a blue-based colour? For this dog to be a blue-based colour, BOTH parents must have carried the gene - it has to be present on BOTH sides. The fact that one grandparent was blue makes the likelihood higher, but the other parent must have carried it too... maybe hidden in the pedigree for generations.

However if the dog itself is not a blue-based colour, then there is no way of telling if it is a carrier, except by a colour DNA test (which is now available and accurate).

To learn more, then I can't recommend this site more highly - the site's author is a geneticist, and in fact is the geneticist responsible for almost all the current ground-breaking data on dog colour genes:
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogcolors.html

The section on Blue dilution is here:
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dilutions.html#blue

It might be worth remembering that, although Blue is a very highly sought-after colour, and attractive to many (as well as commanding silly prices in a lot of cases!) it also has some less than desirable features which may come along as part & parcel of the colour gene - notably Colour Dilution Alopecia, which causes a permanently thin coat and baldness.

thanks for that yes it sounds like he carries blue he is quite pale in colour :)
i will be saving that link as my bitch is liver and white SBT i have been told this is caused by a reccesive gene so i will be looking further into this :) x

> i will be saving that link as my bitch is liver and white SBT i have been told this is caused by a reccesive gene so i will be looking further into this :-)

Yes Liver is another recessive gene, also called Chocolate, or Brown (and sometimes Red in some breeds, but that gets confusing as true red is quite different and unrelated!). Here's the section on Liver/Brown from that site:
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogbrown.html

A recent addition to that site (Jan 2012) is the section on Nose Colour, which is quite interesting (when you think how some people describe some dogs as 'red nose' etc):
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogNose.html

As an interesting side-note, when Liver/Brown/Choc is combined with Blue (to give a double recessive) the resulting colour is termed Isabella, or Lilac. This is the basis of the Weimaraner breed - they are "lilac" i.e. this double recessive combination. Interestingly, they do not suffer from Colour Dilution Alopecia and we don't know why as yet, but it is possible they have a slightly different form of the Blue gene than other breeds, which doesn't give that allied effect.

in border collies some dilute dogs have alopecia, BUT it's a gene which may be expressed in dilute, but it's passed down through solid colours and so isn't actually caused by the dilute gene.  If dogs have the alopecia gene then they will carry if solid or express if dilute.... If they don't then they wont - so whilst it's only the dilute who may actually get alopecia, it's not actually related to the dilute gene... many dilute dogs don't have this gene.  Like anything else, it's the luck of the genes.

whilst many breeds have colour genetic differences, border collies base colour of black or brown/red are the same gene, just expressed differently.  Brown/red is recessive.  Dilute of black is blue and dilute of red/brown is lilac. 

Blue merle is confusingly not a dilute, nor recessive, indeed not a colour at all :-)  The base colour is black and it's expressed as a dilution of the base colour (but not white or tan/sable).  As blue merle was a well established 'colour' the dilute version is called 'slate'.  Brown/red merle dilution is lilac merle.  It's inadvisable to put a merle dog (of whatever base colour) with a sable or true red coat as neither shows the merle dilution.  In shelties this mating cannot be registered with the KC.

> in border collies some dilute dogs have alopecia, BUT it's a gene which may be expressed in dilute, but it's passed down through solid colours and so isn't actually caused by the dilute gene. 

I think that you will find Colour Diluiton Alopecia in dogs is directly due to the blue gene.

But I will qualify that - in mice, rats and other species the dd blue dilution gene often remutates, which gives slightly different versions... some do not have the add-ons to the gene [pleiotropic effects]. Dr Sheila Schmutz has already identified three different versions of the brown/choc/liver gene. Given time, I am sure she will also find that the blue dilution gene in dogs also has variation - with some not allied to CDA - but there is also the possibility they may be linked to other anomalies, as in other species.

I'll give you a comparative - one gene that gives the Blue colour in rats, also has attached to it a factor for bleeding, rather like Von Willebrands. Show breeders of rats in the UK have tried to minimalise this or even tried to 'breed it out'. They may have succeeded in the most part but it still means some are born with it, and of course you can't tell by looking. Personal experience of a friend whose rat suffered a small injury en route to a rat show and bled out.

The Blue gene in rats remutated in Australia, with similar issues [haemophilia, and also immune system weakness] and caused so may health issues in the animals born with that gene that the biggest club refused to recognise or support anyone breeding that colour, and rightly so.

Unfortunately with some colour genes also come irreparable issues - I hope you will take that on board as the most common version of Blue in dogs DOES have associated issues in the form of CDA.

no, in border collies not anyway, it's only expressed in blue dogs - it's carried through solid colours so only certain lines who carry the alopecia gene will ever express this - and they will only express in dilute dogs, however it's not the dilute which causes this, only for it to be expressed.  As far as I am aware there are no other issues associated currently with dilute (not just blue there's lilac as well) but very interesting stuff.

WOW so intresting ... im like a dog with a bone once i start learning something new lol so will be reading and re-reading till i fully understand .. the nose colour is intresting as my bitch has a liver (red) nose aswell , after reading the above "theoretically" if i mated her to a blue ( she will not be mated this is just theory) they will produce lilacs and isabella (blue fawn) pups because both parents lack black noses the pups wouldnt be able to have black noses either would they as they would lack that gene ? x

just re -read that is "lilac" different to "isabella" or the same colour as in other animals isabella is fawn with a blue undercoat and lilac is ....well lilac lol

in border collies the brown/red dogs will have brown noses, but they may not carry the dilute gene which could give lilac - dilute is recessive so both parents have to carry or be dilute in order for pups to be dilute.

I have a dilute carrying black tri bitch, mated to a brown tri collie - all the pups were brown tri... whether her daughter carries dilute I don't know... she has a 50% chance of carrying dilute.  It seems the dog doesn't carry dilute, but you'd say neither parent was black!  But that's just the way the genes work - 50% chance of red for each pup, not 50% of the litter being black and 50% being brown....

Dilute can arrive as a surprise in British litters because the ISDS didn't recognise dilutes - so a blue dog would be registered as 'black' and a lilac dog as 'brown' or 'red', they kept more accurate records (for dilute) in Australia, so a lot of the known dilute lines come from there.