German Solid Silver
Does anyone have pictures of newborn German Shepherd puppies other than black and tan?
I have a newborn litter of purebred German Shepherds. Mom was rescued while pregnant. I am trying to figure out what color they are with no luck. The only newborn pictures I can find are of black and tan puppies. These are solid grey, grey with while markings, and possible tan sable. Mom appears to be silver. Any help would be great. Thank you.
How do you know that the dam is “pure-bred”? – whatever THAT means nowadays!
Even if she is one of the rare pooches rescued WITH its KC papers, I would be amazed if you had adequate proof as to who the sire is.
So please do NOT call the pups “pure bred” anythings.
They are not registerable with any KC, and so their colour is irrelevant – it will be whatever it turns out to be.
Apart from which, all acceptable GSDs are the same 2 colours – black & tan. What varies is the distribution & depth of each. And then there are the forbidden livers and “blues” and self-whites.
Assuming that both parents are genuine GSDs, the pups you call grays are probably actually “blues”, which is banned in GSDs but exists in perhaps 2% of the American version of the breed. Check the pigment of their “leathers” – nose, lips, eye-rims, pads. A GSD is required to have those all solid black, but “blues” will have gray “leathers”.
While wet with birth fluid, GSDs normally look almost pure black.
24 hours later, after the green has been licked out of their coats:
- the self-colours will have no tan (but might have small white spots on toes, tail or chest; those spots can appear on any coat pattern, being inherited separately from the pattern and the colours).
- the saddle-markeds will be dark almost all over but with tan on their “wrists” (pasterns), by their anus, and on their cheeks & as eye brows.
- the sables will be honey-coloured but with tan on their “wrists” (pasterns), by their anus, and on their cheeks & as eye brows; they should have a dark stripe above their spine – the wider the stripe, the better.
As you call the dam “silver” we know that her colour is flawed – silver translates as “almost white”. She is therefore severely colour-paled, and has probably lost her black saddle. It is quite possible that the stud was also colour-paled, in which case some of the pups might have such weak coat pigment that the black could look “thin” and “smoky”. Such pups will end up as pale as the dam, regardless of which pattern they have now.
Photos won’t be a lot of help, because the coats of whelps ARE so similar at birth, before the colour paling genes and the modifiers take full effect.
With such unknown ancestry you cannot POSSIBLY know what the family history is for achalasia and ankylosing spondylitis and elbow dysplasia and epilepsy and hip dysplasia and juvenile renal dysplasia and night blindness and panosteitis or any of the other problems that pooches can inherit, so it’s a pity you weren’t sensible enough to put down all except maybe 1.
Les P, owner of GSD_Friendly: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/GSD_Friendly
“In GSDs” as of 1967