Just a quick colour genetic question. dog has one liver parent and one black parent. the dog itself is black. If mated to a liver bitch will some puppies be liver?

assuming it's similar to border collies the answer would be yes, possibly... liver/chocolate is the same gene as black, but a variation and is recessive... so if the black parent doesn't carry liver all the pups will be black, if the parent carries then there could be both, so a black carrying liver dog may sire liver pups mated to either a liver bitch or to a black bitch carrying liver (but probability is less).

My black border collie had a litter (3 years ago, not trying to sell any!) to a chocolate dog, they had 8 chocolate pups.... proving that she carries chocolate ;-) but the percentage possibilities were 50/50 for each pup.

thanks. That is pretty much what I thought. Now if the dog is produced from one black parent and one liver/chocolate parent then am I right in thinking he has to be carrying liver?

Yes, that's right, if one parent was liver then the whole litter will carry it.

yes, although neither of my black bitch's parents were chocolate, nor her grandparents or even great grandparents ;-)  but I felt she might as she had two still born litter mates one of which was chocolate although she & her live siblings were all black :-)