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The puppies are here!

Yes I should have added that some colourings can be very complicated! But the basic four-colour inheritence for cavaliers is quite straightforward -- the way the numbers will fall remains uncertain if there can be combos (eg in a litter where you could have either rubies or blenheims) but there can't be any other combos than the way the basic colour genes work.

Barbara I also have to remind myself of that sometimes -- that the particlours are actually wholecolours with white breaking upthe wholecolour, like paint splashed over. Not white as a base, with the other colours on top, which is what seems more 'natural'. :)
 
they look like rubies to me ( mismarked with the white ).....sorry i don't know the story was she mated by accident
 
Barbara Nixon said:
Coat colour genetics are indeed much more complicated than the mere B, b, S and s , for markings colour and white showing. For instance there are thought to be four alleles for the white 'spotting ' gene, ranging from S for no white, s (little i) for Irish spotting, where the white areas don't go over the back, s (little p) for piebald, as in cavaliers and s (little w) for mainly white. These are in descending order of dominance. In other breeds, genes, affect markings like black masks (gsds) , merle (collies), intensity of colour (labs) etc, but the basic inheritance of white showing is straightforward. If they don't carry the S allele for no white, then white will show. Therefore neither Blenheim parent can carry this and pass it on.

Ani nteresting point is that our particour dogs are not actually white with black, red or tan markings , but coloured dogs with white 'leaking' through.
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Thank you, that was what I was looking for. Though for rubies with white markings, would it not be possible for Blenheim parents to sire them if the white is leaking through still?
 
No. Below I use s where it should be s (little p) for convenience.

Blenheims are all bbss

Possible matings are with :

1) Wholecolours carrying no white

BBSS (black and tan) giving all BbSs (ie black and tans)

BbSS (black and tan) giving BbSs and/or bbSs (ie black and tan and/or ruby)

bbSS (ruby) giving all bbSs (ie ruby)

2) Wholecolours carrying white:

BBSs (black and tan) giving BbSs and/or Bbss (ie black and tan and/or tricolour)

BbSs (black and tan) giving any of BbSs, bbSs, Bbss, bbss (ie black and tan,tricolour, ruby,Blenheim)

bbSs ( ruby) giving bbSs and/or bbss (ie ruby and/or Blenheim)

3) Particolours:

BBss (tricolour) giving all Bbss (ie tricolours)

Bbss (triclour) giving Bbss and/or bbss (ie tricolour and/or Blenheim )

bbss (Blenheim) giving all bbss (ie Blenheims)
 
Okay, I follow that - it's fairly clear genetics. What is the line between a piebald & a wholecolour with white when you are looking at one? Is it not possible to confuse the two since the amount of red markings on Blenheims differ? I've seen some rubies that look, to me, on the verge of possibly being confused with a Blenheim. Obviously, if you knew the genetics after testing them, you would know for sure but if you didn't test them? Isn't there another gene or set of genes detemining how much white or red exactly is on a particular piebald or how much white exactly is on a wholecolour?

Sorry, I find this very interesting & apologies for diverting the subject away from cute photos.
 
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I'm not a breeder so I haven't read up on all the color combinations but I do have a book on CKCS Color Inheritance Patterns. It states that an ee:ss blenheim paired witha ee:Ss ruby will produce 50% bleheim and 50% ruby puppies. Ruby puppies get darker as they age.
To me the puppies look purebred just mismarked. Just my opinion.
 
Wow firstly what adorable puppies!!! so sad that one slipped away :-( Thanks for the photos, but also what an extremely interesting lesson on the breeding of cavaliers! as a non breeder with absolutely no scientific facts to offer I would just like to say my cousin has a "ruby" cavalier cocker mix and he's sooooo cute!!
I find all dog's gorgeous but my 2 favourites are labs and cavs so they are definately gonna be cute if that's the mix.
One thing we are all certain of in this case though, is that they are half cav and so are all gonna be heartbreakers!
Looking forward to hearing all the news and more photos as they grow :)
 
There is no guarantee about proportions of Blenheims and rubies from a Blenheim -white carrying ruby mating, like ,though a one in six chance, you won't get a 2 in every six throws of a dice. Its just that there are two possible types ie Blenheim or white carrying ruby.

If you mate two non-dominant tricolours ie Bbss

You can get BBss (dominant tri), bbss (Blenheim) and Bbss (also tri). However , in the latter case, you could have the B from mum and B from dad and vice versa, so there are three chances of tri with one of Blenheim . ie 75% tri, 25% Blenheim.

A friend mated a dominant tri bitch with a white carrying ruby dog and theoretically she should have equal numbers of each colour, but got three black and tans and one tricolour. However, because colour inheritance isn't straightforward, the black and tans were mismarked with white flashes on head and chest.
 
loveisokay said:
Okay, I follow that - it's fairly clear genetics. What is the line between a piebald & a wholecolour with white when you are looking at one? Is it not possible to confuse the two since the amount of red markings on Blenheims differ? I've seen some rubies that look, to me, on the verge of possibly being confused with a Blenheim. Obviously, if you knew the genetics after testing them, you would know for sure but if you didn't test them? Isn't there another gene or set of genes detemining how much white or red exactly is on a particular piebald or how much white exactly is on a wholecolour?

.
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I always think if they have white feet they are Blen/Tri.
my sisters ruby is from a blen to ruby ( dominant wholecolour) mating & all the pups were ruby with white on their heads very similar to these little ones so i'm guessing dad was something solid coloured
 
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Barbara Nixon said:
There is no guarantee about proportions of Blenheims and rubies from a Blenheim -white carrying ruby mating, like ,though a one in six chance, you won't get a 2 in every six throws of a dice. Its just that there are two possible types ie Blenheim or white carrying ruby.

If you mate two non-dominant tricolours ie Bbss

You can get BBss (dominant tri), bbss (Blenheim) and Bbss (also tri). However , in the latter case, you could have the B from mum and B from dad and vice versa, so there are three chances of tri with one of Blenheim . ie 75% tri, 25% Blenheim.

A friend mated a dominant tri bitch with a white carrying ruby dog and theoretically she should have equal numbers of each colour, but got three black and tans and one tricolour. However, because colour inheritance isn't straightforward, the black and tans were mismarked with white flashes on head and chest.
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This is all very interesting. So I take it from the chances in the first paragraph that it is possible for two Blenheims to have a Blenheim with a heavy red marking?

As for what I put in bold - that was the issue I had in the first place with the table that was linked. It is a general guide, but it seems after hearing what people have had to say that it isn't ALWAYS the case.

Thank you! I have found this very informative! :)
 
AT said:
I always think if they have white feet they are Blen/Tri.
my sisters ruby is from a blen to ruby ( dominant wholecolour) mating & all the pups were ruby with white on their heads very similar to these little ones so i'm guessing dad was something solid coloured
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My ruby has both on her feet (well, toes on one foot) & on her head (she has the opposite to the little thumb mark Blenheims have!) but I know one of her parents was a tri. I think it depends on their particular parents & grandparents!
 
loveisokay said:
My ruby has both on her feet (well, toes on one foot) & on her head (she has the opposite to the little thumb mark Blenheims have!) but I know one of her parents was a tri. I think it depends on their particular parents & grandparents!
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white on the extremeties such as toes ,tail tip etc can be caused by enviromental factors aswell.
I read an interesting article that showed how when the pup is forming the pygment cells start at the spine & spread over the body. If the mum was a bit off colour for instance the pygment cells might not reach the extremeties resulting in white marks.

even identical twins wont have exactly the same markings due to enviromental factors
 
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Cathryn will explain better, as she breeds particolours, mainly Blenheim, but the amount of marking , I believe runs in a dog's lines. Teddy is not quite what would be called heavily marked (Don't know about Dad- Homerbrent Expression, Cathryn), but his mum is the same. Joly is very lightly marked. His mum and dad are not heavily marked.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that even a heavily marked Blenheim will have a white muzzle, chest and underparts.
 
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AT said:
white on the extremeties such as toes ,tail tip etc can be caused by enviromental factors aswell.
I read an interesting article that showed how when the pup is forming the pygment cells start at the spine & spread over the body. If the mum was a bit off colour for instance the pygment cells might not reach the extremeties resulting in white marks.

even identical twins wont have exactly the same markings due to enviromental factors
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I didn't know this. Again, thank you for that!

Goes to show a lot can affect these puppies as to what colour they end up!
 
I've only just caught up on all this news now. How wonderful. Thelly you are brilliant to have done such a great job with Ginger. From the photos it seems that Ginger is turning out to be a fantastic mom. I'm so sorry to hear that one little fellow went to the bridge, but these things happen, and I echo Cathryn, perhaps he was too special to be parted from the man upstairs for too long. Thanks for posting the photos. :luv: :luv:
 
Barbara Nixon said:
Cathryn will explain better, as she breeds particolours, mainly Blenheim, but the amount of marking , I believe runs in a dog's lines. Teddy is not quite what would be called heavily marked (Don't know about Dad- Homerbrent Expression, Cathryn), but his mum is the same. Joly is very lightly marked. His mum and dad are not heavily marked.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that even a heavily marked Blenheim will have a white muzzle, chest and underparts.
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GULP!!! Ermm OK! On the whole heavily marked to heavily marked will produce heavy marked, so if you want to "break" colour you would use a lighter marked dog. However to shoot that theory totally to pieces I once used the late Ch: Storm Trooper by Delhaze at stud to a Tri girl of mine, he is quite heavily marked and she is heavy marked on her one side but nicely marked on the other, in that litter there was a little lad who had ginger ears, eye patches, nice blaze, one patch of tan over his ribs on his left side and a round of tan over his little tush!! :lol:
I also heard another breeder say that heavy to heavy will actually break colour :confused:

As for Ch:Homerbrent Expression he is what I would term as more heavily marked too.
I would certainly agree that all heavily marked Cavaliers be they Blenheims or Tri's have a white muzzle, chest and underpants.
 
Regarding genetics on colour inheritence: the 'theoretically should have had equal numbers' is basic Mendelian distribution estimates, not a 'should have' situation, ever (it is always 'could have'. (y) As I noted before, the numbers of colours you get out of a possible distribution is an entirely separate matter to what colours are possible.


In other words, the chart is absolutely and totally correct -- though the difficulty is always in knowing whether a dog has which colours dminant and/or recessive; which can often only be determined by breeding certain types of litters. The actual number of puppies with colouring that falls within any of the possibilities that actually come up are ALWAYS just a guesstimate. The basic colours poosibilities though are NOT.

So the same points hold: there are no variations possible on the basic colour chart linked to. This is an extremely well understood area of genetics. Other phenotype expressions such as ticking or whether a dog is heavily marked is an entirely different issue. Please talk to an actual geneticist if you don't believe me, but breeders will confirm this is the case. :) There is every possibility of any number of the POSSIBILITIES turning up incuding NONE when more than one colour is possible.

For example, Mendelian genetics might suggest that a certain combination would be most likely to produce out of four puppies born, two rubies and two blenheims. But you could have any variation of that POSSIBILITY. The odds are that there will be an equal split. But you could have 1 and 3, 2 and 2, or all four one colour. Likewise several matings CAN produce all four colours. But because of the limited number of puppies in a litter, this is very rare.

There are very heavily marked blenheims and rubies with a LOT of white that can seem to be a different colour than they really are.Having particolours in the background of wholecolour lines tends to produce mimarked whoecolours (eg wholecolours with white). I have seen a couple of B&Ts so heavily mismarked that they almost looked like blanketed tris.
 
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