Pugs of Color Question

[tibkitty12]

I am not sure where this should post, but I figured it is kind of a genetics question.

Maybe you all have talked about this before also, but here goes. :cargreen:

Does anyone else out there have brindle pugs?

I have a female brindle that I have been considering breeding to a beautiful fawn male I have found. I guess my other question is, does anyone think there will be brindles out of a breeding like this? I honestly don't care what color they are as long as they are healthy.

Thanks for any info that you can offer to me on this.

[PugLady3]

We just talked about this recently. Here's a link :

http://www.pugvillage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3478

[tibkitty12]

Thanks for the link to the past topic. ShellyJ talked about my little brindle in that thread.

I had read the posting about brindles on pug.com and even offered to send the person a picture as they requested in the little side box, and they never wrote me back!

I also remember seeing a site, I think it was brindlepugs.com or something like that, and they posted that brindles were indeed a color that was bred way back when, and since they were not popular that the breeders actually starved the puppies to death so that they would not continue to breed in the genetic code for brindle.

Pixie's father is listed with AKC as a brindle pug. All you have to do is send them a front view and side view along with the registration. He has also been DNA tested and verified as 100% pug.

I have talked with several folks about this and heard the cross breed theory also, and along with her fathers DNA results, I am left scratching my head in confusion.

Pixie is 100% pug personality and temperment, in fact I think she is more pug then the fawn I have. She also has a much better conformation then the fawn. At our Pugcrawl last year, we ran into 2 other brindles and I was shocked! Everyone loved them to death, and asked where to get one.

I was just curious if there might be other brindle owners here on the site.

[jwestoverpug]

Could you email me photos and her pedigree? Genetically it really just isn't possible unless there is something else mixed in somewhere, even back a few generations. Does she have AKC full registration, or an ILP number?

Jesse

[Winston's Mom]

Jesse,

I thought the way you could get the brindle is by breeding a lot of black to fawn and basically making a very splotchy coat that should be black but has a lot of fawn in it. Or I guess you could state it another way and say a very, very smutty fawn.

Even thought black is the dominant gene, I guess if there is enough fawn in the background it would be possible to throw one like that???

I've been trying to study the genetics a little in order to better the coats of the blacks. Some of them are so ruddy and after studying pedigrees that seems to occur with there are a lot of fawn/black breedings. I have noticed that when you have a higher percentage of black/black breedings, you get the inkier blue/black coat?

[tibkitty12]

After pulling out Pixie's pedigree, I noticed that her family does not have anyone listed as "brindle" although they are, as I saw them with my own eyes. In fact, Pixie is listed as black because I did not send in the photos of her along with the registration. I guess I can do that any time and get it changed. I am also thinking on doing the DNA testing for the AKC as I am assuming that this will tell us for sure if she is pug and pug only.

Here are some quick photos of her to show her coloring. She does have a lot of fawn/black cross-breeding in her background. I only have a 3 generation pedigree and that is hard to tell about as most of the brindle owners did not send in photos either of the pug to get it registered as brindle so they can be listed as black or fawn depending on which color they have the most of. (grrrr)

[tibkitty12]

Okay the pictures didn't post as they did in my preview page...to see her, click on the see our Zoo link after my signature and go to the pugs tab. Those are the pictures I was trying to attach on the email.

[jwestoverpug]

Well, I've seen some pics of this little pug (thanks again Heather), and she is brindle. I don't think the color is the same as a really smutty fawn, the coloration just seems different than that. From what I understand the only color that is dominant to brindle is black, so if a pug was mixed with something else, say a frenchie or boston, you could get a brindle pug mix, or a black pug mix that could carry the brindle gene. I haven't had a chance to see the pedigree yet, but if the parents are black or brindle that would make sense. I believe you could have several generations of black "pugs" and one day get a brindle, but this isn't the case with fawns, a fawn pug only carries a fawn gene. I still think there is something else mixed in somewhere.

As far as the reddish black vs. blue black I'm really not sure. I've never had black pugs. One of my mentors feels that breeding fawn to black really helps the color on the fawns. I was told somewhere that most of the reddish blacks are double coated, and the blue black are single, have you noticed this? I agree the blue black is much nicer.

Jesse

[Winston's Mom]

Jesse,

I have a friend who has 2 beautiful single coat blue/black pugs. Her ruddy coat black is also a single coat.

The 2 blue/blacks pedigrees have only 25% fawn dogs in a 4 generation pedigree on both sire and dam side.

Her black that is more ruddy is heavy black on the sire side and much more fawn/black on the dam side.

I have also heard that the reason for the fawn/black breeding is to put more pigment in the fawn, but it also seems to dilute the black. I guess since fewer people really go for the black and they are so much harder to finish in the ring, they just breed to better the fawns.

I think genetics are so interesting. I think it would be interesting if you did have Pixy DNA tested to see if she was pure pug. It won't make her any less pug in your eyes, but it would be interesting to find out the answer about the brindle.

[DantePugs]

Before I start, I just want to say that none of what I wrote below is intended to suggest your Pug is any less a Pug than any other Pug. I'm posting because I find the subject interesting and feel I can contribute to it..

Long post ahead.

Genetically, barring the occassional genetic mutation (usually Albino), if you breed a 100% pure Pug with another 100% pure Pug, you will get either Black or Fawn as the primary color depending upon the genetic makeup of the parents...No other color would genetically exist....no white, no brown, no rust, nothing. Again, I'm speaking here of two Pugs with no other breed anywhere in it's ancestral line.

You may see differences in the markings, quality and density of color etc, but you won't end up with a Brindle Pug....Simply put, there would be no genes to yield any additional colors.

Differences in fawn Pugs...those with lighter or darker coats, smutty or clean and so on are a matter of color markings....ie; where and how the black coloration in a fawn is distributed along its body, something which is also determined by genetics.

For the cleanest possible definition and distribution of these markings toward the standard, fawns are bred with fawns, and blacks are bred with blacks..

Breeding black to fawn risks the possiblity of seeing a decrease in the definition of the black markings of the fawn offspring as per the standard....ie; you may see a higher amount of black fur interspersed along the back of the fawn Pug. Similarly, you may see a less defined stripe along the spine, or a wider one...or a blacker tail tip, splotches of black just outside the mask on the fawn, the amount of black at the top of the head and so on and on and on.

In a nutshell, genetics plays several roles in determining the coloration of Pugs....They determine the primary color (black or fawn), and the placement of color (markings) on the dogs body....this is most easily expressed by saying "where the black went on a fawn Pug".

Ultimately, smutty fawns are simply Pugs which have black in the wrong places as per the standard.

Brindle Pugs are simply Pugs which have another breed somewhere along the lines of the dog....could be recently in the lines, or it could be so far back that it is untracable on paper.

It is possible that any given Brindle Pug is exactly like a Pug in every other way except for coloration. It could do everything a Pug does, share all other physical attributes, have the exact same temperment, same health problems and so on as any fawn or black Pug does....it all depends on the genetic history of the dog.

Pugs and all other breeds were genetically engineered from something...Exactly what the "original" dogs were on this earth, nobody really knows...where they came from, what they looked like and so on pretty much follows the same questioned path as where life came from....God, nature, the big bang theory or whatever it is one chooses to believe.

Pugs are the result of people taking two or more pre-existing breeds and messing around with them genetically (through breeding) until the desired result was achieved....Once that result was achieved, the Pug was isolated and sequestered, bred, bred and bred some more until all genetic influence of other breeds were bred out of the genetic makeup entirely, resulting in fawn or black offspring each and every time.

The same thing can be done at any given time, with any breed to create a "new" breed or breed variation. Given the number of Brindle Pugs out there, and the fact that there is a fairly strong uniformity in coloration in Brindles, it's quite likely this was in fact done.

This wouldn't be at all surprising if you consider that anytime a new color variation of a breed is accepted by the AKC for example, that new variation was developed in the exact same way...through genetic engineering. On top of this, there are people all over the world currently working on developing new breeds of dogs and new variations of recognized breeds as well....You won't see them until they "come out" either through AKC acceptance or, barring that, the engineers deciding to pass on AKC altogether and introducing their new breed or variants through what is usually restricted distribution in case they decide to revisit the idea of submission to the AKC again.

From a purely historical point of view, and based only on available documentation, there is no evidence of Brindle Pugs ever being recognized as Pugs....All written evidence of Pugs in history, as well as illustrations of Pugs throughout history references them either in words or pictures as being either black or fawn...

From a personal standpoint, I can recall seeing Brindle Pugs as long ago as my early childhood, so they've at least been around for a solid 30 years or more....though they were seldom seen with any real frequency until probably 10 years ago.