Genetics question black/liver split

[Birdie Wife]

Okay, I have a fair idea about genetics but I'm not sure which colour genes in cockers are dominant and which are recessive. Cari is black but split for liver as her mum was black, dad was liver and all the pups were black. So I think if (hypothetically) I mated her to a homozygous black I would get all black pups, if liver I would get half liver and half black pups (split for liver). So far so good... I hope...

So what would happen if I mated her to a solid red or solid gold dog?

And what about parti colours - are there any that are dominant or would they just be partly expressed, resulting in mismatched dogs?

Can anyone point me at a colour genetics in dogs 101?!

[Jane S]

Red/Gold is recessive to solid black so both parents have to carry it to produce it (same as for liver). If your bitch doesn't carry red/gold, she can't produce it even when mated to a red/gold dog.

Particolour is always recessive to solid so two particolours can never produce a solid but two solids can produce a particolour if both carry the spotting gene (particolour). Within the particolours, orange/lemon and liver are both recessive to the black partis ("and tan" markings are also recessive). Also roan is dominant over "and white".

I have posted a few links to genetics sites before but will see if I can do a sticky thread sometime (bit short of time today) to save always doing a search for them

[Birdie Wife]

perfect, thanks!   

But if I mated her to a gold dog, half the pups would be black/gold split (=black phenotype) and half would be liver/gold split - what would the second half of puppies look like? Is liver dominant to gold, or vice versa? And what about red?

[Helen]

Does Cari carry gold?  If not, no gold pups as far as I understand it - both sire and dam of the litter must carry the gold/red gene.

[JaspersMum]

these are some of Jane's links from another post

Here are a few useful sites which explain more:

http://www.stirling-ecs.org/general/color_genes.html (although the section on sable is wrong in light of current research)

http://www.ecsca.org/ecscoat.html

http://www.thecockerspanielclub.co.uk/colours.htm

http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/genetics/colorgen.html

[Birdie Wife]

Ah ha! sorted, thank you! So a pup that's got liver and red/gold will be... liver? I think?

[Helen]

yup - if the dam doesn't carry gold....

[Black Red + Yellow]

Very interesting!!!

Alfie had pups with a black and white Cocker and the majority of them were either gold like him but there were a few lemons too - realy pretty so the Mum dog must have the red gene.  Learn such a lot on here!  Thank you