Quote:
Originally Posted by saschia
jefta, I looked at the web and the coat color test is only for few breeds and I would not know which locus to test for.
How would this gene work in agouti-colored dogs (like wolfdogs)? The liver-colored nose is not enough to say that this is the gene of interest. You may ascertain it by crossing a liver-nosed wolfdog with liver-nosed labrador and look at the noses of the puppies (but that would be cruelty in my opinion, so please do not try it ;o))
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There are two different types of pigmentation; eumelanin (black/--> blue or brown) and pheomelanin (red/cream). The gene (bb) that causes black pigmentation to turn into brown (liver), only affects eumelanin. So this basically means that whatever the colour of the dog is, all the normally black areas in it's skin & coat are brown. So if the dog would normally be agouti ("wolf grey"), with genotype bb it will end up looking like the forrest brown Saarloos. Or if a dog would normally be solid black like Labrador, with genotype bb it will turn into solid brown.
Here are two sites that explain it all more spesificly:
http://abnormality.purpleflowers.net...cs/pigment.htm
and
http://abnormality.purpleflowers.net/genetics/liver.htm
Eumelanin affects skin aswell as hair, but pheomelanin only affects hair.
Some exceptionally reddish wolves do exist, but they always have black skin pigmentation (nose, lips, nails etc), that shows it is only more "pheomelanistic" individual than usual. Here are a couple of pics by photographer Lassi Rautiainen. They are wild Finnish wolves. Wolves of this color are found more frequently in eastern Finland and in Russia.
As you can see, they still have black pigmentation and black hair tips allthough their coat is overall more pheomelanistic.
But whenever a canine has also brown skin pigmentation, it must be genotyped bb.
German Shepherds have brown/liver (bb), allthough it is disqualifying trait due to the standard aswell as white (ee) and blue (dd).
http://www.4gsd.net/colours.html
It is possible for all breeds that are derived from GSD, to carry these genes.
But like someone allready said, it would be likely to have happened more often in CsV allready, if they would have had the brown (bb) gene in them from the beginning.
So it is more realistic to think that it derives from alot more recent heritage; propably from last decades mixing with Saarloos.