Showdog.com Forum · Bloodhound

Jeff said to start a thread here if we wanted our place in line bumped up. Soooo, hows everyone feeling about colors? Are we in a big rush to get colorful hounds? Do we want to discuss and dig up our own genetic research for the breed, or would we all rather wait for Jeff to get to us and be content with what he chooses?


I suppose I'll go first, lol. Colors really aren't all that important to me. I'm happy to wait our turn. I do think it would be interesting to work together and agree on a color scheme though. We did it a few years ago when deciding our SOP, and I think it could be an educational and fun bonding activity between old and new kennels. So, I'm game, but I'm in no hurry. -Neb

Thought I'd add this bit-

I did a preliminary search. Bloodhounds come in three colors-
Black and Tan
Liver and Tan (some standards call this red and tan)
Red (some standards call this tawny)


Those are the basics, the saddle on the dogs can range from having a nearly black dog with just a tiny bit of tan, to have an almost entirely tan dog with just a tiny bit of black.

White spotting on the chest is allowed but discouraged (I think we should probably ignore white altogether)


The FCI standard explained the colors the best....

"COLOUR : There are three distinct coat colours : the bicolours black and tan and liver and tan and the unicolour red.
Among black and tan dogs the amount of black varies, according to whether it is a mantle or a saddle. In a dog with a mantle, black is predominant : the tan ( fawn ) is only found on the muzzle, the cheeks, above the eyes , on the forechest, on the limbs and the anal region. A dog with a saddle has a greater expanse of tan because the black is more or less limited to the dorsal region.


The same positioning of coloured zones is to be found in the bicoloured liver and tan. The colours are not always clearly stated nor distinctly defined. In the darker areas, it is possible to find them interspersed with lighter or badger hairs. Such a mixture of different coloured hairs is allowed.
For the unicoloured red, the red can vary from light red to dark red.
A washed-out tan for bicolours or red for unicolours is not sought after .
A little white on the forechest, on the toes and at the tip of the tail is tolerated without being sought after."


I could not find anything on the actually genetics behind the colors, but I didn't look very hard.


That leaves two logistical questions-
A. What are the genetics behind the colors?
B. Is Saddle vs Mantle a clear cut genetic trait? (ie, can we breed for a mantle black and tan, or is the extent of the black generally random?)



Which gives us, as a group, a few more questions....

Do we want to include the undesireable white?
What terminology do we like best for color names?
If Saddle and Mantle are clear genetic traits, do we wish to include them?


Looking forward to input -Neb


ps- I checked the following breed standards- AKC, UKC, FCI, Canadian Kennel Club, the Kennel Club (UK), Australian Kennel Club

I LOVE red Bloodhounds and always imagine mine as that.
That may be a cool idea... but does it mean we should not cross colors?

It doesn't matter to me what we do with the color as in if we wait or not to get them included.

However I would be interested to know if anyone is going to be breeding for a certain color or if it is not going to be that big of a deal.

MJ

It might put an interesting twist on the game. Just wondering about what happens to the dog we already have.

Here is how I understand it- color will have NO impact on a dogs abilities in the show ring. Its simply a fun bit of information. In breeds where you can predict color DQs by genetics, Jeff has so far exempted those dogs. In labradors, for instance, a bbee labrador is a yellow with chocolate pigment- which would be extremely unfavorable in the ring. On SD, they are simply recognised as yellows and show as well as any other.

Color has NO effect on who you may breed your dog with.

It will, of course, effect the color of the puppies produced, but as stated before, if you don't care, color has no bearing in the ring



For exsisting dogs- Jeff figuires out what the color ratio in the breed is in RL (maybe, say, Red hounds make up 90% of all bloodhounds) He then assigns all STARTER dogs a color randomly, based only on this ratio- so 90% of all starter bloodhounds would be red in this scenario. This includes pre-exsisting starter dogs. From there, all of their decendents have a genetically predetermined color based on whatever breedings were performed. So far on showdog, this hasn't worked out so well. 100% of current generation labradors are black for instance, even though the original staters were of all three colors. Because color has not been bred for, some breeds have seen an extinction of certain color lines.


What does this mean? It means that color will be available IF you want to play with it. Some Lab breeders are using earlier generations to try to get show quality yellows and chocolates on SD. Others don't mind having all black dogs and continue playing as normal. It will have NO impact in the ring, just a novelty to play around with.


Personally, I'm rather fond of liver and tans and mostly black black and tans (like the one in my PP, ) I'm not sure what my plans are, alot will depend on the end results of color- if it turns out that we have bred a color out of exsistence in this generation, I might find it fun to try to bring it back. If we are well distributed, maybe I'll try to collect all three (or 5 if mantle and saddle are seperated). Or perhaps I'll decide I don't much care at all. If you are worried, I'll tell you that currently I see the bulk of my kennel continuing breeding operations as they curreently are. Any color projects will be small scale, at least in this kennel.


I think that answers all the questions so far. -Neb

ETA- Moonshine, you will be able to breed whatever dogs you like together, crossing colors will not be an issue. Even in breeds where it is avoided, Jeff has fixed it to allow interbreeding. I believe in RL bloodhounds color is not a determining factor in breeding, and you can get ALL colors in one litter!

Neb, you covered just about everything... except the genetic codes. Now this is my theory of how the genes behave, but it's only a theory as I haven't been able to find anything much that says conclusively one way or the other.

First, check out what this site has to say:
www.gidgenet.com.au/baylord/whats-new.htm
Black/tan and liver/tan are apparently normally recessive to solid red. So here goes my theory.

K locus:
kk: allows genes on agouti locus to be expressed. Technically irrelevant for the game since all Bloodhounds have to be kk, but included for the sake of completeness.

A locus:
a(y): often called sable in other breeds, produces varying shades of red with varying amounts of black (usually black-tipped hairs rather than solid black)
a(sa): creates saddle pattern in black or liver on tan dog (this gene is controversial, some think saddles are due to modification of the black-and-tan or a(t) gene)
a(t): predominantly black with tan "points" (mantle?)

B locus:
B: black
b: liver

And after that geekfest, here's a breakdown of the possible gene combinations. One site I looked at distinguished between light-skinned (genetically liver) and dark-skinned (genetically black) reds, so I'm making note of it here.

Red:
a(y)a(y) BB
a(y)a(y) Bb
a(y)a(y) bb (light-skinned)
a(y)a(sa) BB
a(y)a(sa) Bb
a(y)a(sa) bb (light-skinned)
a(y)a(t) BB
a(y)a(t) Bb
a(y)a(t) bb (light-skinned)

Saddle Black and Tan:
a(sa)a(t) BB
a(sa)a(t) Bb

Mantle Black and Tan:
a(t)a(t) BB
a(t)a(t) Bb

Saddle Liver and Tan:
a(sa)a(t) bb

Mantle Liver and Tan:
a(t)a(t) bb

ANY input would be greatly appreciated! I'm pretty familiar with cat and small mammal genetics, but dogs are ... much more complicated.

-Hannah

WOW, Great Job! ROTFL over the dogs more complicated than cats comment- I tried learning cat genetics a few weeks ago and it was way more complicated than dogs I thought!

Your analysis looks good to me, you even uncovered the saddle vs mantle genes! I'm still wondering if there isn't a webpage out there somewhere that lays out bloodhound genetics for certain. Maybe I'll email some breeders this week and see what they have on the subject. And I'd be very interested to see what everyone else digs up.

I think you might have nailed it with your theory though. It fits perfectly. And also explains why most bloodhounds are Red, if that bit of speculation is true.


Oh! thats what we need! Color percentages. I'll work on finding that. -Neb

I found this bloodhound specific link describing the light-skinned reds you talk about.... members.tripod.com/RiverbankBloodhounds/colors.html


So far, everything I have read confirms your genetic model, although thats the only bloodhound-specific source I have. I'm joining a bloodhounds listserve to find out more, and get our color percentages, and I plan on shooting off emails to a few breeders. I suppose once we know the genetic model and color frequencies, we can send out PMs to pull everyone into the thread so we can hash out how we want our saddle vs mantle dogs described on this site. (I've heard primarily black B&T hounds are unofficially called "black" and saddles are called B&T, although under the standard they are the same. -Neb

Ok, I got a slew of responses from RL Bloodhound breeders today, so I thought I'd give an update. They are all working on a model from a book called "Color Inheritance in the Bloodhound" by Dennis Piper. Apparently the genetics behind the expanse of a saddle is more complicated than we thought! Here is the model they have given me.....
First, black vs liver is indeed a simple B/b model. So....

BB- black
Bb-black
bb-liver

Then there is a seperate gene for tan markings. They are as follows....


0. No saddle or monocolour (this is the colour we know as 'red' in the B/h)

1. Slight saddle.

2. Medium saddle

3. Extensive saddle (almost entirely black, but more tan than a doberman)

4. 'Blanket' or 'predominant' or 'solid' black or liver. ie tan only on eyebrows, lips and legs, like a doberman



The dominance pattern goes like this....

Mono coloured ie. (red) all over
A(0)} /AA /Aa1/ Aa2/Aa3/Aa4

Bicoloured

Very small saddle= a1} a1a1/a1a2/a1a3/a1a4

Medium saddle= a2} a22/ a2a3/ a2a4

Darker saddle= a3} a3a3/ a3a4

Very solid dense black=a4} a4a4


If it inherits 0 from either parent, it will be a monocolour (red) hound. (It follows that at least one of the parents will be monocolour.) If it is BB, or Bb it will have a black nose, but if it is bb it will have a liver nose.

The pattern a hound manifests will always be determined by the more dominant of the two saddle pattern genes it inherits. Hence a mating of two hounds with saddles will not produce a monocolour. On the other hand mating two monocolours together could very well produce hounds with saddles, because each of the 'red' hounds could carry a type 1-4 recessive gene, invisibly. In fact you normally get a mix of monocolour and saddled hounds, because the homozygous monocolour, which carries two 0 genes, and so can produce only monocolours, is rarely bred.

If two type 4 hounds are mated you will get only type 4 puppies, since this is the most recessive pattern.


This is the genetic information I've gathered so far. I've recieved 5 or 6 responses, all confirming. My only question is that everyone has linked the 0-4 to the b gene, which makes no sense to me, I think it is a seperate gene (the A locus seems ideal) One of my respondents seems pretty on top of it, so I am going to email him and ask about this. (it has been mentioned that the saddle gene may rest on a seperate gene).


The only problem with this model (even though it is techincally correct) is that it gives us 9 colors of hounds. Since the standard only refers to red, liver and tan, and black and tan, it would seem a bit odd. We might be better of lumping the saddle genes into one or two categories- either label all bloodhounds as simply red, black and tan, or liver and tan, or, split the scaled down the middle, making a1 and a2 saddle black, and a3 and a4 predominantly black (or liver, of course). In that case we would keep the genotypes, but limit the names of the phenotypes.


I have only recieved one response about color percentages. Here is that response, in its entirety, because it was interesting.....

"Generally it seems that the lighter the color, the more dominate the gene..that is, the red is dominate over the black & tan and liver and tan. But, because the black and tan is the predominate color in the show ring, the statistics can be a bit skewed, depending on where you are looking.

In the general population, I would say that 80% or more of the rescue dogs that I have seen in the last 15 years have been reds...either the reds Mick described with the black nose & dark lining on the ears and muzzle or the lighter reds with a dun nose and no dark highlights. However, in the conformation ring, reds are in the minority....at the last nationals, I think there were only 5 or 6 reds out of about 120 dogs entered. The majority of the dogs were black and tan or liver and tan (maybe 60/40?). Full coat blacks (b4 or "blanket black" are even more rare in the ring.....there were only 4 entered.

There is a lot of breeding specifically for liver right now (since Knotty won the Eukanuba National show, the number of liver rescues has increased to the point that it has its own name <grin> "The Knotty Syndrome." )Generally, if you breed two saddled black & tans, you will get saddled black and tans (although either could carry a liver or b4 gene). I am planning a line breeding with a B&T (out of a full coat dam) to a dark red (who's father had 7 full coat siblings). On paper (famous last words!!!), I should get full coats....but genetics is such a cr*pshoot that I won't know until they arrive if the b4 gene will come through. If only that Big Breeding Crystal Ball was working!! LOL

One of my mentors told me that, with 4 dogs being equal in quality and opportunity, the saddled B&T will finish his/her championship first, followed by the saddled L&T, followed by the Red, with the Full Coat being the last to finish. It is why reds and blacks are not as common. Sharon is right..if someone took the time, money and the right dog, either of these colors could become a top dog."


Anyways, IF we choose to use showring statistics to start with, this one instance would give us....

5% Red (6/120)
3.3% Black (4/120)
55% saddle black and tan (66/120)
36.6% saddle liver and tan (44/120)
and 0% solid liver (0/120)

We can adjust that to give us liver and clean percentages by going....

5% Red
3% Black
55% saddle black and tan
36% saddle liver and tan
1% Liver


That is of, course, preliminary until we see if we get any more responses. To determine the color percentages based on the rescue dogs, I'm really unsure. Seeing as how this is SHOWdog, I'm thinking maybe we should use the showring statistics. Those dogs are likely to be the ones being bred by the showbreeders as well (I'm seriously doubting they keep kennels full of red dogsthat they breed but don't show) Also, since Red is dominant, I can see how it would quickly predominate in a BYB's program, but not nessescarily in a show breeders kennel.

Anyway, thats what I'vbe found so far, I am expecting more respinses, so I'll keep you updated. -Neb

ok, I got clarification on the marking genes today- BSI's original scheme is the modernly accepted version. Geneticists group Types 1-3 under A(sa), and type 4 as A(t). Bloodhound breeders still use the 1-4 model for some reason, but if you were speaking to a geneticists, they would use A(y) A(sa) and A(t) only. As that splits the breed easily and well, I think thats the model we should go with.


As for percentages-

I think the current numbers are probably correct. The second breeder I've been in contact with, who is British, gave me some very interesting information today, I'll quote it directly for you.....

"On prevalence, it varies. As we have a small population here in the UK, the influence of a single breeder or a couple of litters which are much bred from, can be significant.
Currently the B/t with a fairly small saddle is what one sees most often. Some breeders particularly like the blanket pattern, and some love the liver, and will breed the occasional all L/t litter. The red is always slightly endangered,as it is the most dominant. You can't afford not to breed reds in a generation, or they will disappear, as they did during WWII, and had to be restored with an import."


So red, despite being dominant, is fairly easy to breed out of the gene pool! I've recieved other anecdotal responses, minus good estimates, on the rareity of both reds and blacks in the show ring.


I think for our color names we should use Red, Black and Tan, Liver and Tan, Black, and Liver.

Black appears to be a pretty commonly used term for A(t) hounds. I haven't heard of any term for the livers, but as they occur so rarely thats not suprising.

On a side note, am I talking to myself? Anybody still reading? I'm considering starting a new thread, listing our genetic combos, color names, and percentages and then PMing all active breeders for ratification. Anyone agreed or oppossed? Think we need more research? -Neb

Sorry for not responding sooner, but I am still here.

Your percentages sound fine, since I don't know anything, and I like the names for the colors, they make a lot of sense. A new thread would be good, to put everything all in one place.

Hannah

Bumping this just so it doesn't get lost

bump