# Corgi Puppy Permanent Colors



## TheGeeksWife (Nov 4, 2010)

Does anyone know at what age a corgi puppy stops changing colors? I know that some red and whites can be born with black hairs making them look sable, but when do they stop changing colors? I have a corgi puppy who looks sable right now, but the breeder told me she could become a red and white and that it's still too early to tell. That was at 6.5 weeks. I'm just wondering when I'll know for sure if my puppy is a red and white or a sable.










Thanks,
Heather
The Geek's Wife


----------



## Michiyo-Fir (Jul 25, 2009)

Your pup looks like she's likely to be a red and white. They usually pretty much stop changing at 6 months old although colors can change a little between 6 months and 2 yrs old. However, she's showing very little sabling right now at such a young age and from what I know about my breed (Papillons) puppies that are that light at her age are almost always red and white. There are exceptions sometimes but quite rare.


----------



## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

Michiyo-Fir said:


> Your pup looks like she's likely to be a red and white. They usually pretty much stop changing at 6 months old although colors can change a little between 6 months and 2 yrs old. However, she's showing very little sabling right now at such a young age and from what I know about my breed (Papillons) puppies that are that light at her age are almost always red and white. There are exceptions sometimes but quite rare.


Well technically she'd be clear sable, not genetic red and white. 

It looks like your dog will look red and white. My dog in my signature was much darker than your puppy and is now pretty much completely clear with no black in her hair.


----------



## Michiyo-Fir (Jul 25, 2009)

Laurelin said:


> Well technically she'd be clear sable, not genetic red and white.


Hmm can a puppy that had sable hairs at one point never be a red and white dog? I thought red adn white dogs are born with bits of sable as well?


----------



## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

Michiyo-Fir said:


> Hmm can a puppy that had sable hairs at one point never be a red and white dog? I thought red adn white dogs are born with bits of sable as well?


Nope, red and white dogs never have any sabling in their coat. A true red and white will never have a single black hair on them. Red and white puppies are generally born lighter and get darker as they get older. Clear sables are born darker then get lighter. They may call it red and white in corgis but it's not really red and white bicolor, it's clear red sable. 

Check out these pages: 
Red: http://www.letitpapillons.com/info/colors/red.htm
Sable: http://www.letitpapillons.com/info/colors/sable.htm


----------



## Michiyo-Fir (Jul 25, 2009)

Oh. That means most red and whites are actually clear sables. Would the Braylor's dog Blondie be a clear sable too then?
http://www.braylorspapillons.com/blondieped.htm

She seemed to have sabling on her ears as a puppy?


----------



## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

Taggies' show cousin!!!! <3


----------



## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

The dog looks sable to me considering there were black hairs on her back end and ears as a puppy. A true genetic red and white has no black hair ever (think like a blenheim cavalier)

You run into some issues with what breeders call certain colors versus what the colors actually are. Hound tri for example you really can't get people to agree on what it is. (It's actually blanketed/saddled like a beagle or a german shepherd and it's considered sable in border collies) If Mia was a BC she'd be called a saddled sable, if she was a GSD, she'd be blanketed black and tan. A corgi, she'd be red headed tricolor. As a papillon she's hound tri. It's confusing... lol

My Summer is registered as a red and white and her breeder calls her red and white, but she's pretty obviously a clear sable if you look at her. She still has black hair on her ears- just a few hairs but they're there. As a puppy she was darker, then lightened up, which is opposite of what happens in real red dogs. 

A lot of breeders just aren't well versed in color genetics and many breeders for years have been calling sables red and whites.


----------



## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

Can a Red and white dog still have a mask?


----------



## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

You know... I don't know. Masking is a separate gene but I can't recall ever seeing a real red and white dog with a mask. 

Maybe SOB will chime in. 

According to this page: http://www.letitpapillons.com/info/colors/mask.htm

Masking can't happen in red and white or lemon and white papillons.

ETA: Here we go:



> RED:
> The last allele in the E series is e. The [ee] genotype is epistatc which means that it will override whatever gene is on the A locus. In other words, a Pap who is [ee] will only show pheomelanin pigment in its coat no matter what alleles are present on the A locus (which produces eumelanin or black hairs). An [ee] Pap will not show any eumelanin in the coat, though it will show eumelanin in the leather. The shade of the gold hairs is determined by the C locus (read above) and by modifier genes. As a result, the hairs on a red Pap may be anything from dark red or orange to pale yellow. Red Papillons are typically born a pale shade of red that darkens with age. If the dog is [atat ee] then it may “show lighter-yellow points against the darker-red background” (Little 51). Concerning the C locus, if the red, [ee], genotype is present along with the chinchilla factor, [cchcch] (read above on the C locus), the Papillon develops a very pale shade of red called lemon. In Papillons, lemon may also be referred to as a blonde. What is fascinating is that lemon puppies are born pure white and the lemon color develops over the first few weeks of life, like a Polaroid photograph. A red Papillon will have black leather pigment. However, although the [ee] dogs show normal skin and eye color, they sometimes show reduced pigment in the nose, especially in the winter known as snow nose (read below on snownose). Something important to note is that when I interviewed breeders, the vast majority concurred that a red dog can have a black mask (read above on masks). However, analyzing Little’s work in the inheritance pattern of coat colors in dogs, it is apparent that a red dog cannot have a black mask. For a dog to be red it must have the genotype [ee]. For a dog to have a mask it must have the genotype [Em-]. Therefore, for there to be a red dog with a black mask, the dog would have to be [ee Em], which is not possible. Another discrepancy that I found while interviewing countless Papillon breeders, is that many of them believe that if a dog has no black on its body, but does have a little black on the ears, that it is still a red. Unless there is a mutation, which is extremely rare, this does not seem possible. Therefore, these dogs are most likely sables (read above on sables) that have very little black overlay.


Also here on recessive red and masks: http://abnormality.purpleflowers.net/genetics/masks.htm


----------



## spanielorbust (Jan 3, 2009)

A true red and white (e/e on the Extension locus) cannot have a mask.

There are three alleles that can occur on that locus - E'm', E and e. They will always occur in a pair, of course, one from the sire and one from the dam.

E'm' - (with a mask) is dominant to both E (black in fur but no mask) and e (no black in the fur what-so-ever). Keep in mind, in piebald breeds the mask is often mostly covered by white on the muzzle.

E is dominant to e

BUT e paired with another e becomes epistatic to the other alleles - such as those on the Agouti locus that determine the amount of sable variation in the coat. So, although a single 'e' allele is the most recessive, when paired with another e it almost acts like it is dominant to all on the Agouti and Black loci (the alleles on those loci are there, but you cannot see on the dog what they are).

That is why a true red and white, when bred to a 'clear sable' red and white - can throw black and white. The black actually comes from the true red and white but it could not be seen.

I've known breeders who have bred what they thought were two true red and whites together, to get a black and white - and they still couldn't tell which parent was the clear sable and which was the red and white. In Cavaliers, in the beginning, clear sables were registered as blenheim, or some were called blenheim with black This made, of course, a whole slew of problems for breeders looking back in pedigrees trying to figure out color inheritance.

I believe one genotyping company was trying to establish if masking really had its own locus, that interacted with the E, but I"ve not read up on that recently. Meanwhile I stick with the E'm' being on the E locus.

Heather, you pup is a clear sable by genotype, and always will be - that cannot change. In the breed, however, there will be many that will call it a red and white, as Laurelin has explained.

Black hairs can continue to fade off of a sable pup right into their third year, but usually by 18 months you have a good idea how 'clear' they are going to be, and how intense the 'red' is going to remain.

SOB



LazyGRanch713 said:


> Taggies' show cousin!!!! <3


He is glorious. I love vibrant colors and dark masks.

SOB


----------



## TheGeeksWife (Nov 4, 2010)

Wow! So much great information and knowledge. Thanks so much for all your input. I don't intend on showing or breeding her. My curiosity was just getting the better of me, and I wanted to know what coloring she might have as an adult. She is my companion and I will love her no matter what coloring she has, but I have to admit that I prefer the look of the red and whites over the sables.

Thanks again for all your responses.

Heather
The Geek's Wife


----------



## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

spanielorbust said:


> He is glorious. I love vibrant colors and dark masks.
> 
> SOB


Me too.










To the OP, I think your dog will end up light enough that it will look red and white.


----------



## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

Well I just spent about a half an hour browsing around that coat color genetics page. Interesting stuff.


----------

