Q. Are the diluted colors linked
to health problems?
A. No, the GSD is one breed that just happens to be
free of health problems associated with color. There has been no hard
evidence that health problems are linked to the dilute gene or to the
liver gene in the GSD. I have done extensive research since I got
Solitaire six years ago. Blues and livers are just as susceptible to
health problems as any other color in the breed. To try to avoid any
health problems it would be best to get a blue or liver puppy from a
breeder that screens/health tests his/her breeding stock.
Q. Why do most professional breeders stay away from the
dilute colors?
A. Most professional breeders operate by the standard
of a given breed. Blue and liver are considered serious faults. Due to
the lack of knowledge about genetics when the standard was first
written, it was believed that recessive genes must be bad for the dog.
Now we know that recessive genes are not all bad. This goes back to
the old days when anything white was considered albino, before we
learned to distinguish between pigment and lack of pigment.
Q. Why are most of the blue and liver puppies culled in
Europe?
A. It was general practice to cull out any pup that
may be unhealthy. Also since the German standard disqualifies blues
and livers, and they only are allowed to have a certain number of
puppies per litter..I think six. Say you had a litter of nine pups..six
were standard colors, and three were blues? It's the national law in
Germany that only six pups per dog...And the standard disqualifies
blues. So the blues are culled. However that is not the end of the
blues...blue is a recessive gene and its littermates will carry the
blue and pass it on to the next generation and so forth.
Q. Where did the blue and liver genes originate?
A. There is not positive proof to any of the theories
that answer this question, however some of the more credible
theories are:
1. That the original breeds used to develop the German Shepherd
consisted of many of the same breeds used to develop other herding
dogs like the Australian Cattle Dog and Australian Shepherd.
These breeds have both the blue and liver (called red in their breed)
as an acceptable color. It is possible that when it was decided to
eliminate the merling pattern from the GSD's that the two colors were
also set to be eliminated as they follow closely with the pattern.
2. That because both the liver and blue are dilute colors that
originate from the dominant black they may have developed as a
recessive in the original formation of the breed, as inbreeding is
required during this time to set type.
Q. Have they always been
integrated into the breeds genetic make-up?
A. According to which theory that you feel most
appropriate the answer will depend. If they were part of the original
stock that formed the GSD, then yes they have always been there.
If it was a mutation from the dominant black then it began at the
point in time that the dominant black mutated into the recessive
blue/liver.
Q. Are there temperament variations that are different
from the other colors?(ex: I had been told that whites were more
nervous than standard colors and blacks were more apt to bite.)
A. This is absolutely untrue. If a study is done
of any one color and a "fair" representation of different bloodlines
are presented then any observer would find pros and cons
temperamentally in each of them. The color gene does not in any way
have any affect on the genes that determine temperament. The only
thing that must be considered here is that when a breeder breeds
specifically for one particular aspect in a dog, then the gene pool
of possible partners is limited. Are there lines of
whites/blacks/blues/livers that are untrustworthy in temperament......
OF COURSE......just as there are an equal number of lines of
sables/black&tans that are untrustworthy.
Q. On the registration papers, what is the difference
between a blue and a gray?
A. It is understood that the blue will have blue
leather, a true gray would have the black leather that is acceptable
to the breed. Also gray is a term that the German registry uses to
describe the lighter sable color. While shedding these particular
sables have a grayish look to them.
Don't see all the links? Put your cursor on the
blue dog, if that doesn't work try the other one : )
