Brownie black coat?

[mini66]

I was looking at a show cocker the other day and it looked black but in the light it looked like a brownie black coat...is there two types of black coats then "pure" black and "brownie black"? Not that it really matters just curious

[elaine.e]

It's to do with genetics. This is a quote from the website of The Cocker Spaniel Club -

"Genetically there are several different variations of "black" as we see it in a dog. In reality there are blacks that are genetically pure for this colour and as the most dominant colour, they will only ever produce black coloured offspring, although these offspring may be blacks carrying a different genetic mix. The genetically pure blacks tend to have raven black hair. Blacks carrying liver, red in either variety of pigment, golden and of these, those which may or may not carry the gene for tan mask and trim, may appear to be black but may sometimes show a touch of "rust" in their coats."

I think the rustiness will be more noticeable in a coat that isn't groomed frequently and contains dead hair, or maybe in a dog/bitch that has been neutered as that often changes the coat a lot.

[lescef]

Our second cocker was black, but in certain lights her hair looked brown. If I remember rightly one of her parents was  golden.

[Redked]

Bonnie is black (small blue roan patch on her chest) but in bright sunlight, her ears have a brown tint. Her mum was black but her dad was liver and her litter mates were 2 black and 3 liver. Just the genetic mix, as Elaine has quoted.

[mini66]

Interesting, thanks for all your input

[jessika]

Like stated above, its all down to the coat colours that are in the dogs genetics/ancestry, Ozzie is blue roan but has ginger/red in between his toes which possibly comes from the fact his grandmother was tricolour and roan and he has orange roan in his ancestry