Genetics


Nell

Member
I have recently been studying the colour genetics for dachshunds and I am hoping someone can help me with a question.

My pup is a red dapple girl, if I was to breed her to a clear red stud would the pups be 50% red dapple and 50% clear red?

Also how would you know which are which, when my pup was born she had no dapple markings, the breeder knew she was dapple at eight weeks as this was on her pedigree. But she has only developed a few darker patches in the last month or so?

Just to be clear this is purely for my interest I have no plans to breed at the moment.
 

Penny

New Member
That is the worst combination you can do. Clear red hides dappling so if you breed your red dapple to a clear red, there's a very good chance you can end up with double dapples.

As for what they would produce, you have to know what they are carrying, and even then, it's a crap shoot. For all you know, you could end up with piebalds.

For breeding, I am much more interested in the conformation of the dog and checking the health testing that is available. Color is the last thing to consider. This is why we have so many dachshunds that look like dachshund mixes and why we see so many double dapples.
 

Nell

Member
Hi Penny, I hope I made it clear this is NOT something I was considering doing. I totally agree there is sooo much more to breeding, my enquiry was to make sense of some of the information I have been reading about around colour genetics etc. I only used my pup as an example.

So.... if a clear red can be hiding the dapple does this then mean that other colours can as well?
 
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Penny

New Member
You can see dappling on the other colors.

Red is dominant over black/tan and chocolate.
Black/tan is dominant over chocolate.

What this means is that if a red dog is bred to a bl/t dog, and the puppy is choc, the puppy got a choc gene from the red and a choc gene from the b/t.
Red and b/t must be absent for a puppy to be choc.

That's the basics, and you can build from there. Dachshunds have so much variation because of color, pattern, and coat, it takes a bit of time to nail it all down.
 

MarciaA

New Member
You Can Find Them in These Colors:
Red ~ Black ~ Chocolate ~ Cream ~ Isabella ~ Blue
with or without tan points


Red
From a very pale strawberry blond, to a deep mahogany red, with or without black shading.

Black & Tan, Black & Cream,
and Solid black


Chocolate & Tan, Chocolate & Cream,
and Solid Chocolate
(brindle doesn't show well in Chocolates)
This is a recessive color, it must be showing or carried in both parents to be produced (black/tan that carries chocolate, bred to a
chocolate or another blk/tan that carries chocolate could have cho/tan and/or blk/tan pups)
But breeds dominant to 2 chocolate & tans (you would get all cho/tan pups). Chlt can't carry black and tan, but blk/tan can carry
chocolate

Cream, called Wheaten in wires.
With or without black shading.
(This is a Dilute color of Red)

Isabella (also called Fawn) & Tan, Isabella & Cream
solid Isabella.
(this is a Dilute color of Chocolate)
This is a recessive color, it must be showing or carried in both parents to be produced.

Blue & Tan and Blue & Cream
and Solid Blue
(This is a Dilute color of Black and Tan)
This is a recessive color, it must be showing or carried in both parents to be produced.

In any of these Patterns:
Dapple ~ Brindle ~ Piebald ~ Sable/Wildboar


Dapple
One parent MUST be dapple to have dapple pups, as it is a dominate gene.
A dapple dog (called Merle in other breeds like a collie) is spotted and mottled in appearance. For instance, a black and tan
dapple will have area's of silver hair, this is due to the dapple gene diluting the black color ~stripping it of it's pigment as a way
of describing it. This dappling effect can be in any of the color, the tan points, over all the body, in the eyes creating blue eyes
or blue spots in the eye. This is a basic description. When you see the reference of Reverse dapple, it is used to describe that
there is a heavier pattern of the lighter dappling on a dogs body than the darker self, say black to stick with our earlier example,
and would appear more silver all over rather the splotches of silver interspersed in the black. It doesn't mean it is a different
pattern of dapple. There can be other patterns mixed in there also, you can have a dog who is dapple/brindle/piebald. You
cannot register a dog with multiple patterns with AKC, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. They can be very lovely
interesting dogs, and would still be good pets, but would be unable to be shown in a ring, and are not recognized by any
dachshund organizations.
Dapple cannot be carried, but it can be hidden. You may have a dog that appears solid that had a small dapple spot at birth and
is unseen later on. This is how many double dapples are produced unknowingly by breeders. Not all pups in a litter will be
dapple, but can be (though the odds are against it). Only one parent has to carry the gene. But if you were to take a solid puppy
from a dapple breeding that puppy would never produce a dapple, unless it was bred to another dapple.

Double Dapple
Breeding 2 dapple dogs together will produce double dapples. This can be a lethal combination, the double gene can land in
the eyes causing blindness, in the ear causing deafness, some pups can be born without eyes or other malformations. Some
are born perfectly healthy and beautiful. Double dapples' may have blue eyes, partially blue eyes, or a blue eye and a brown
eye, and are called "Wall" coloring. They may have white blazes on their heads, white tail tips, and extensive white on their feet,
bellies, and sides. DORG has a nice bit of information about it. A double dapple bred to a solid dog, will have all dapple pups
(not double dapple pups). This pattern is not acceptable for show. See below in the piebald paragraph for The Dachshund
Color Crisis.

Piebald
The Piebald gene is recessive, and can be carried for generations. Piebalds look very similar to a beagle, with
the large spots of color on a white background and may have ticking (smalls spots from just a few to thickly scattered all over).
Not all piebalds have ticking. It can be carried, but to produce a true piebald and not a dog that *carries for piebald* both
parents must be piebalds, or at least both carry it. They can be all white with just a small patch of color on the head or
elsewhere on the body, or have a *tuxedo* effect of a large white area on the chest also. All piebalds will have a white tipped
tail, and should not have blue eyes.
They can have blue eyes if they are dapple/pie. All the patterns can be found on a piebald, although it too cannot be registered
with all the patterns. At this time, the DCA (Dachshund Club of America) no longer allows piebalds in the show ring. AKC
follows the rules set by the DCA. Many piebald fanciers are very unhappy with this recent decision, and are attempting to have
them re-instated. I wish them the best of luck in this endeavor, as piebalds are just as beautiful as any other color and pattern.

Brindle
The brindle pattern is a dominate gene, one parent has to carry the gene to produce brindle pups. The
brindle appears as stripes like seen on a tiger or zebra, and can be seen scattered all over the body. In a dark color like
chocolate or black, the pattern might only be seen in the tan points as the darker color will hide it.

Sable ~ Long coats
Wild Boar ~ Smooth and Wire coats
Sable is a dominate gene, one parent must be sable to produce sable pups.
Sable/Wildboars appear to look like a black and tan at first glance. All body hairs, except on the face and feet, are banded with
two colors, the self color occurs closest to the dog's body while the darker color occurs near the hair tip. The face and feet are
usually just the dog's self color. The most common (and sables are not that common) are red sables, the undercoat is red with
black tipped hair so they appear as a black and tan. I have heard they can come in any color since it is a pattern, but I've seen
my first non-red sable recently (shown on the color page).


Here is a link to the colors and patterns that are recognized at this time:
AKC Registrable Color / Patterns




The colors:

Red (black nosed) is dominant. Chocolate, black, dilute, and cream are all recessive, therefore can be carried. You cannot get a
dominant red from 2 blacks, chocolates, dilutes, or creams being bred together. Dominant red cannot be carried it must be red
to produce red, much like dapple, brindle, and wire.

2 black and tans can produce chocolates, dilutes, and pointed creams.
However, 2 chocolates could only produce chocolates, Isabella's, e-reds (whole 'nother ball of wax :lol:), and chocolate
creams and on the rare occasion Isabella creams.

Hope this helps clear up the confusion!


This is a bit off topic, but I think it is important too.

The Coats:

Longhairs can't carry smooth or wire.

Smooths can carry longhair, but cannot carry wire.

Wire can carry smooth and longhair.

Genetics is a struggle and partly because the way we use the language.
For each trait, a dog has a pair of genes, one donated by each parent.
A dominant trait is manifested if present in only one of the genes.
A recessive trait is manifested only if present in each gene of the pair.
For Coat type the Hierarchy goes like this:
(W)ire Absolutely Dominant
(S)mooth Dominant only to Long
(L)ong Recessive to Wire or Smooth

Dogs with a twin pair( W/W, S/S, L/L ) can only offer their own coat type to any progeny.
Since (W) is absolutely dominant, a W/W dog will only produce wires irrespective of what their mate offers.
Canada, the UK and other kennel clubs dis-allow cross-breeding of Coat types.

Two W/S dogs could produce smooth puppies. Smooth is recessive only in the presence of the Wire gene.

A W/S dog and a W/L dog could produce a S/L pair of genes, in other words, a Smooth puppy.

Two W/L dogs could likewise produce longhair pups.

Wire breeders(show) have a difficult time setting a uniform and correct coat because of the issues of incomplete dominance and the
recessive nature of the other coat types.


The Patterns:

Piebald can be carried, but one parent must be brindled or dappled to have dapple or brindled puppies.

When a double dapple is bred to a solid all the pups will be dappled.

If you breed 2 piebalds together you will get all piebalds, but that is not the case with brindles and dapples.

Recessive is a gene that is only inherited from both parents. Recessive genes can be carried.

Dominant is a gene that is inherited from only one parent. Dominant genes cannot be carried.

Some genetic's

Author is Dana of Grand River Dachs

Dana is a Biology Instructor and loves to explore Dachshund Genetics.

The b- & c-series are color genes and the a-series is a pattern gene.

There are really 3 genes involved in red (not including recessive red), chlt, & blk...

Chlt & blk are on the same gene series (b).
BB/Bb is Black
bb is chlt (the recessive of blk)

The a-series then determines if there are tan points or if the dog is red.
a^ya^t/a^ya^y makes a red dog
a^ta^t make a tan pointed dog.

Then there is the c-series which determines the cream from the red.
All tan pointed / red dogs are CC/Cc^ch
All cream pointed / cream dogs are c^chc^ch.

So what it winds down to is the a-series determining if the dog is red or pointed. So really this is the most important.

The reason a red dog can carry blk and chlt is that... if their genotype for instance is a^ya^t Bb CC...
a^ya^t ... says that the dog is solid red but carries points
Bb... B means the dog has a blk nose/shading (carries blk) and the small b means it also carries chlt.
CC... means the dog is red

So for instance my friend bred a blk nosed red to a chlt/tan. 5 of the puppies were red with blk noses... so they carried blk and
chlt (Bb).
2 of the puppies were red with chlt noses... they only carried chlt (bb).
 

Nell

Member
Thank you Marcia, since my original post I have continued to research the genetics and now have a much greater understanding. I was also very interested in your explanation for the dominance of coat types because as you correctly say this is very much frowned on in the UK and you rarely see the offspring of a cross mating of coat types.

You do not see any piebalds here and I haven't seen many brindles advertised either. There are currently a lot of chocolate and tan mini's advertised in the UK but very few standard dachshunds of any colour / coat type. We also seem to have only the two sizes mini & standard but I understand some places also have a size in between?

Dachshund genetics is a very interesting subject and I have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the breed (almost as addictive as the dogs themselves LOL!)
 
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