Geshenk

In answer to your last question, yes, A would be dominant to C, but you're correct in that this is over simplification. There is no one gene that defines any breed of dog. Most breed characteristics are not very obvious in young puppies as these tend to develope as the dog matures, and this is particularly true of body morphology. Coat type and colour are though exceptions to this so this does tend to influence perception of breed type in puppies. KBD short coat type is dominant over GR long coat, so the puppy is short coated carrying long (assuming the GR cross is long coated). The colour is not quite so simple. Assuming the GR parent is normal GR colour, this is recessive ee, yellow. KBD colour is black & white and as black is dominant, and as this is the only colour in the breed, the sire would be expected to be homozygous KK EE, in which case, all pups should have been black. Your pup looks to be sable & white (with black mask), which shouldn't be possible but it could possibly be a rather pale seal, genotype heterozygous Kk Ee. If she is sable, then she will get gradually lighter in colour (except for the mask) and might even end up clear pale sable, a similar colour to GRs. If she is seal, she will stay the same or may get darker. White spotting is a bit more complicated as there is co-dominance and possibly more than one gene involved, but generally less white is dominant over more white. Quite possibly the GR parent carried for white markings from the Husky input. Other charcteristics like ear carriage/type, body type, tail etc are each controlled by multiple genes so very difficult to predict. I do agree though that the general appearance from the photo seems to be of spitz type and this could be down to the Husky input doubling up with KBD alleles. KBDs and Huskies are both spitz breeds and very similar in coat, tail, ear and general body type.

Don't know if I should have started a new thread... I'm a novice trying to understand this. I do have some questions. These 1418 genes that have been found not to be orthologous in the two species..... how would this have come about? This is more than just allelic differences right? And how do gene loss/gains happen? If there is a website that I can read to explain this in simple terms I'd be most grateful for a link. Thank you.

I think it may be more to do with vit D synthesis. Eye colour is linked with skin colour and those with light skin and eye have a selection advantage in climates with reduced sunlight as they can better synthesize the vitamin.

Hello pb, hope you have it sussed by now. If not, I hope the following is of some help. I think you are right in that the Healthgene formatting is a bit confusing. They list two different terms for the ee genotype - orange and red. There are various terms for this colour across the breeds but 'orange' is the usual one for English Setters. And on a quick glance, I've seen at least two mistakes in the table, in the 'hidden color' column. These are the possible genotypes - Morganne and Lexie bb ee These are the only two genes that we can be sure of. The K locus isn't known because ee is epistatic and overrides almost all others. We can be sure of bb because this shows in the nose pigment. A black nose would have to be Bb or BB. Valor Could be various genotypes, too many to list but what we can be sure of is that he is - B_ E_ KB_ The second allele of each of those loci could be a repeat of the same or the recessive (for this breed) - b, e, ky. Any combination of these recessives coupled with those three dominants will give a blue belton with black pigment and without the tricolour pattern. Belle Bb E_ kyky She has black pigment so has to be B (from her sire), and the b is from her dam Lexie. Dominant E has to be present for normal distribution of black pigment, but we don't know the second allele on that locus, it could be E or e. And kyky is the only gene combination that allows expression of tanpoint pattern (tricolour) in this breed. Noble B_ E_ kyky Same as for Belle except that we don't know his second B locus allele.

Hi, I'm Geshenk. I live in West Wales, UK and have an interest in animal behaviour, canine in particular.... genetics and evolution.