Concerning the inheritance and genetics of the sable colour:
I have been puzzled by the inheritance of this pattern for some time and did not find answers enough when I searched the Internet. Therefore, I made a 'study' of all litters in Sweden with either:
* At least one sable parent
or
* At least one sable pup, no matter the colour of the parents.
At this time (April), there were about 20 litters in Sweden that matched my criteria. There was only one litter with non-sable parents. This was a litter by a blue roan male out of a black bitch - with a sable father. This combination had thrown 'blue roan sables'.
Litters out of sable + red only threw sable or red.
Some litters did not have any sable pups at all. I checked the parentage of the parents and realised that in all cases there was a chance that the non-sable paret was homozygotus for black. Both grandparent on this side was 'black' - E on that locus (blue roan, black, liver etc).
There were very few cases with sable lines on both sides of the pedigree. Which means that sable has to be a dominant trate. All the sables in Sweden cannot be black & tans, blue roans & tans or tricolour with 'too much red (not that I ever believed that, but you got to check it up).
My conclusion was:
Sable is a dominant gene, that is only visible on a red-based dog (genotyp ee: red, golden, orange roan or red/white). The sable gene causes the black pigment to spread partly over the body of the dog. The gene can be carried by black-based dogs (genotype Ee or EE), but is not visible since the entire body is - black.
Still, the gene is dominant. Which means: that blacks/b&t/blue roans/livers etc out of sable parentage can throw sable IF they, apart from the sable gene, also carry red (e) and are mated to a red-based dog or a dog that carries red.
'Blue roan sable' is misleading. Ok, these dogs LOOK like blue roans, but genetically they have ee on that locus. They will not throw black-based dogs with non black-based dogs. 'Orange roan sable* would be more correct and why not sable roan*
The chocolate sable or liver sable should be a dog with 'golden' base colour - eebb.
Yep!
Anneli