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Date Posted: 23:25:30 11/21/09 Sat
Author: Jenny W
Subject: Re: there are different forms of blue
In reply to: Lee 's message, "there are different forms of blue" on 17:48:00 11/21/09 Sat

The "blue" colouration is quite complicated as it can be caused on two ways.

There are two types of basic colouring in most dogs: Agouti Black/Brown and Agouti Yellow. As I understand it Boerboels are mainly coloured in the Agouti range of Dominant Yellow A(y)(all shades of red and yellow are genetically designated "yellow" in this range).
The other type of yellow is differently carried as a recessive in the Black/Brown range, but the dogs carry no black hairs at all or any black markings like mask etc so it is a rare individual in our breed that is coloured this way.

I have assumed that most Boerboels are in the Agouti Yellow range as often the pups are born with an almost black coat which lightens with age and this is indicative of Agouti Yellow rather than the recessive (ee) yellow in the Agouti Black/Brown range that has no black hairs or markings.

The intensity of colour in the Agouti Yellow range is dictated by a modifying gene and dogs can be coloured fawn, yellow, orange or red with some black hairs and black skin. If the dilution gene is present in both parents, this can dilute the colour to the "Blue" we see (which is really a more silver grey colour), but the skin remains BLACK as does the nose leather and the eyes are brown.

In the Agouti Black range the dilution creates the Slate Blue colour by diluting the Brown modifier in that range, but this is a different Blue and the dogs have liver or BROWN skin and nose leathers and hazel or yellow eyes.

This could be the reason that liver noses are frowned upon in this breed as although they do no harm, they are in fact an indication of a breed outside of the Agouti Yellow range having been introduced at some time. I don't actually think farmers in SA gave two hoots for the genetic colouring of the breeds they introduced as long as they got the sort of dog they wanted.

Of course all sorts of breeds were used to create the old useful farm dogs over the years and I don't just mean the last 25 years, but way back beyond that, so we will see liver noses and ridges and houndy ears other signs of these breeds from time to time, but in order to try to bring some uniformity, the SABT right from the word go, decided to disqualify outward signs of "other" distinct breeds and a liver nose is one. (Quite how we quantify "other breeds" in a breed that is inherently crossbred, I'm not sure, but certain decisions were made in 1983 that have had a bearing on the direction of the breed since then). It doesn't mean those dogs have been recently cross bred, it just means they still have a visible sign of the rich tapestry that went into the formation of this breed.
There are an awful lot of signs of other breeds in Boerboels, some obvious and some not so obvious, but I wouldn't expect anything else in what David beautifully describes as "a farm cur"! It's what this breed was and to a greater extent, still is. Trying to uniform type is a great idea, but not at the expense of the basic traits that brought us this far and it's going to take a lot of dedicated work to maintain the things we want while trying to get a bit more predictability and uniformity in type. We also have health and temperament considerations to work on.

To go back to adding in other breeds again would, in my opinion, just add to the workload and unpredictability of future breedings. We need to know what we've got and get a handle on it before we add in any more variables. If we ever get to the stage that we have run out of options (and personally I think we are a long way from that), then maybe it should be considered, but I also think we are in a better position than most breeds because of the rich heritage and the diversity that went into to making this type of dog a breed.

JMHO

Jenny

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