Puppy Coat Color Mystery

While this blog speaks often of genetics and shepherd dogs, coat color genetics holds little interest to me save when it represents a moral issue.  But, coat color genetics is perhaps the most popular interest of dog breeders, mostly because they want to know how they can get that pretty color in their litters.  So, coat color aficionados, can you solve this puzzle?

Here are photos of a sire and dam, and their puppies.  How can two parents that display white markings produce puppies that don’t?

The Sire

The Sire

The Dam

The Dam

Their Puppies

Their Puppies

Where are the white markings?

Where are the white markings?


Leave your theories in the comments, please.

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About Christopher

Christopher Landauer is a fifth generation Colorado native and second generation Border Collie enthusiast. Border Collies have been the Landauer family dogs since the 1960s and Christopher got his first one as a toddler. He began his own modest breeding program with the purchase of Dublin and Celeste in 2006 and currently shares his home with their children Mercury and Gemma as well. His interest in genetics began in AP Chemistry and AP Biology and was honed at Stanford University.