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Brown puppy

20 11:39:37

Question
QUESTION: I bred my blue & gold female yorkie with a black & tan male. It's her first litter and she had only one puppy. The puppy is brown & tan though, not black & tan. My plan was to breed this puppy but is this coloring indicative of an inappropriate adult coloring? Also, when mating two Yorkies of different colors like I did, how do I determine what color to put on the AKC registration?

ANSWER: Pat,

You didn't say how old the puppy was.  Every litter of Yorkies pups comes out looking like a miniature Doberman in color and markings.  I have never seen a brown and tan (could it be dark brown?).  One of the things about the puppies is that until they are about six months old you cannot tell what color they are going to be.  Think back to your dogs, when they were puppies their colors were different than they are now and it took a while before they became those colors.  A typical Yorkie puppy is black and tan but you could put brown and tan on the papers it really doesn't matter because anyone who knows anything about Yorkies knows that the color will change.  Many people whom I sold puppies too wanted a certain color.  I had to tell them that there was no way to tell for sure what color they were going to be.  It is probably a good bet that the puppy is going to be either the color of the mom or dad but there is no sure way to tell.

Sincerely,

Melinda

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: The puppy is 5 weeks old now but even when she was first born her color was brown & tan. It is a dark brown but definitely not black! She has the proper markings though, just with a dark brown rather than the black. The mother was black and tan when I got her at 10 weeks and is now a beautiful steel blue. The stud is still black and tan.

Answer
Pat,

I wouldn't worry about it.  I would just put black and tan on the papers.  Since all puppies are black and tan when they are born if everyone was truthful on their papers they would all read black and tan.  You are going to end up with a black and tan puppy or a steel blue more than likely.  I can't think of any other reason for the brown and tan except if somewhere back in the blood line there was a mixing of the dogs.  It is not unheard of that somewhere back in the bloodline there was a dog of non purebred status that was bred into the bloodline.  It sometimes happens with the sizes so I don't see why it couldn't happen with the colors.  I had a Yorkie mother that was five pounds and in separate litters with different fathers she had different sized puppies.  Now these puppies were sisters by birth but when they were full grown one weighed 4 pounds and the other weighed 13 pounds.  Somewhere back in that mothers bloodline there was a large dog that was introduced into the bloodline, hence a big puppy.  So you can see that the same thing can happen with a dogs color.  You may never get another brown and tan puppy again but you never know.  You may have trouble selling the puppy because of its color but I doubt it.  

Sincerely,

Melinda

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