black or brown nose

[*jean*]

In a  solid golden or lemon and white dog. Is it unusual for them to have black noses are they usually brown? what does it mean?

[Jane S]

It's all down to the genes Brown noses and foot pads on a red/gold/lemon means the dog has two copies of the liver gene so he cannot produce black pigment anywhere on the body and all puppies produced by such a dog would carry the liver gene. Where red/golds have black pigmented noses/foot pads, they either don't carry liver at all or have only one copy of the gene. The liver gene is more common in working lines so that's why you probably see far more brown noses than in red/golds from show lines.

[*jean*]

thanks jane.  thats very interesting. so if both parents have brown noses  chances are they will have liver pups ? Is that correct or could they still have black pups.? I apologise in advance for my thickness.

[Jane S]

You're not being thick - it can get complicated when you have all these genes floating about

A mating between two brown nosed lemons/golds should only ever produce brown nosed lemon/gold pups (either solids or partis, depending on whether the parents carry the particolour gene or not). Each parent has a double dose of the recessive lemon/gold gene which prevents the double dose of the liver/chocolate gene (also recessive) from being expressed in the base coat colour. Their pups will inherit the same genes so will carry liver but will not be that colour themselves. If you wanted to breed some liver pups from a brown nosed lemon/gold, you'd need to make sure the other parent was either liver or a black carrying the liver gene. Bit of an over-simplification but that's the gist of it

[*jean*]

 thanks again jane that all makes sense..now Ive got a couple more questions..
question 1
In the show world are black noses on lemons and golds more desirable than brown ?
 and question 2.. sorry..
and if you bred a black dog to a liver dog would you ever get a black and tan?
I know  a black and tan worker  shes lovely, I dont know what colour her parents were but she had all solid black and liver pups.I think she was put to a liver dog.

[Jane S]

Yes I'd say black pigmented noses/foot pads are preferred for the golds (or orange particolours) in the show ring, mainly because the coat colour tends to be a deeper shade and the eye colour darker (the breed standard doesn't mention nose colour at all so in theory it doesn't matter)

Yes you could get a black & tan from a mating between a black & a liver but both parents need to carry the gene for tan markings. Sounds like the black & tan girl you know was mated to a liver who didn't carry for tan. Some of her puppies will however carry this gene into the future so it could come out in subsequent generations

[*jean*]

thanks jane this is all very interesting as well as a bit confusing..

[kalami]

That's interesting. I've been wondering for the last few days why Bella's nose is brown, when I've only ever met cocker's with black noses. Now i know.