A question about colour

[silhouettestable]

I was reading the thread about the "lemon" & white pup, and the ensuing discussion and it raised a question for me. Are all red dogs called red, regardless of what shade they are? I mean everything from dark chocolate brown to liver, to what would be called sable in a rough collie, right to the palest shade of "blonde" or "lemon". And what would you call a dog that at first glance appears black but has strong red highlights to the coat and looks very reddish in certain lighting?

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Reds: Here in North America and the UK, among working dog people, red is liver or chocolate - ie, red coat with brownish nose leather and eyeliner. Among AKC people, influenced by the show world, red is Australian/NZ red - dominant yellow like a yellow lab, a golden retriever, and genetically Irish Setters are this color as well, though Border Collies don't tend to have that deep color.

 

Sable is still called sable, or it should be. It's a tan coat with black tipping on the hairs. The tipping can form a "saddle" and mask like a collie. I've never heard this called red.

 

The candy colors are a step into weirdness. This pup may indeed be lemon. I think that's dilute dominant yellow, if I remember correctly. Ie, in a dog with black genetics, the dilute gene would produce gray coat and slate colored nose leather, called blue (or gray or slate among some old-timers). In a tan pup, it's really hard to tell whether it's dilute or not because yellows start out really pale anyway.

 

Other colors are so-called "lilac" which is dilute liver, lavender which is, um I think merle slate grey, and I forget what dilute liver merle is called. Mocha latte maybe.

 

The pigment for black and red are both present in black dogs, it's just that you can't see it because the black covers the red. At least they think that's what's happening. Anyway, sometimes if you look right, and the dog has the right genetics for it (for some reason the black seems "weaker" in some dogs), or if the hair is stressed, you'll see the red coming through. It's nothing to do with genetics - the dog is still just plain black, not tri or some oddball color.

 

Although I did once see a Border Collie female that was black and red at the same time. For real. It was one of those chimera things - she had a big patch of vivid red hair right down one cheek from her eye (her eyeliner was brown where the patch touched it), down her neck. I thought my head was going to explode when I saw her, until someone explained how puppies (and other multiple birth fetuses) can be affected by genetic material next to them. Basically she was a "Siamese twin" but the patch of color was all that was left of her littermate.

[DeltaBluez Tess]

All my Border Collies, regardless off color (B/W. R/W, White etc) are all MUD BROWN here after working the sheep.

 

Diane

[Ace]

The lemon in white, in AKC terms is referred to as Aus. Red and White.

 

I think the reason it isnt under red/chocolate is because it can have both liver and black pigment, as well as carry merle (if i'm not mistaken), a friend told me this, so its second rate. They can be tri too, or sable, and it just not show up. I think Merle has been known to sneak in but on a few spots or something, otherwise the color is pretty solid. Red/chocolate cant do that, so I think it became its own color, that an a completely different gene determines if a dog is lemon.

 

Thats what I have been told/research I have done on that particular BC color.

 

Hope that helped!

 

Diane

[AdmiralGonsiorowski]

Here is an site with a lot of information about all the different Border Collie color varieties, the names of the colors, pictures of dogs, and some stuff about genetics. Very cool. They've got the 'Australian Red' seperate from the chocolate red.

 

http://www.gis.net/~shepdog/BC_Museum/Perm...h/BC_Looks.html

[silhouettestable]

Other colors are so-called "lilac" which is dilute liver, lavender which is, um I think merle slate grey, and I forget what dilute liver merle is called. Mocha latte maybe.

Careful, that might catch on. I remember when horse colours went by just the basic names, now they have cremellos, sabinos, perlinos, silver dapples and a whole host of other ones that I couldn't even begin to understand. Mine are bays and chesnut and that's just fine with me.

 

The pigment for black and red are both present in black dogs, it's just that you can't see it because the black covers the red. At least they think that's what's happening. Anyway, sometimes if you look right, and the dog has the right genetics for it (for some reason the black seems "weaker" in some dogs), or if the hair is stressed, you'll see the red coming through. It's nothing to do with genetics - the dog is still just plain black, not tri or some oddball color.

Makes sense, I just didn't know if they were still considered to be black, or had some other name. One of mine is like that, looking at him alone he looks black & white but beside the others he does not look as black, more of an "off black" or brown/black. When the sunlight picks up his highlights he has a very definite reddish cast to his coat, and it's not stressed, he's very sleek and shiny and in good health. I still call him a black & white, but didn't really know if there's a more correct term.

 

 

All my Border Collies, regardless off color (B/W. R/W, White etc) are all MUD BROWN here after working the sheep.

 

Diane

Even without the sheep. This is what my field looks like right now. My guys are not very happy that I've been leaving them behind the last couple of days when I'm doing chores, but this is a bit much for 8 of them to go tearing through and then into the house!

 

 

and this is the backyard

 

 

 

[aussiered]

In Australia what you call "red" we call "chocolate" (so the darker brown dogs) and the dogs that are the colour of the pup in the "lemon" & white pup thread we called "red". But in the US these dogs are called "Austalian red" and the darker dogs are called "red". Does that make sense?

 

I did try to upload pics to illistrate but that function is obviously playing up...