Colors

There are seven approved colors of the Australian Kelpie, black, chocolate brown, red, smokeblue, fawn, black & tan and red and tan.Two black parents can provide all the seven colors of their offspring, if they carry the gene for it. Two black parents can also just leave black puppies just like smokeblue can only leave smokeblue puppies. How does this fit together? It’s about just plain genetics. A gene is a unit of information on hereditary characteristics that are inherited from parents to offspring.

Genes are in pairs in which a gene from the mother and one from the father. A famous example is the offspring receive their gender.The male carries one X chromosome and one Y chromosome while females carry two X chromosomes. The female can only give X to their offspring while the male can give either X or Y. Does the male one X becomes XX = female. He leaves a Y becomes the XY = a male. Just so does färggentik but with more characters to keep track of. There are dominant and recessive genes. When a dominant gene is inherited, it is sufficient that it comes from a parent for it to appear. A dominant gene can not be hidden, but it appears there as well. For a recessive gene to be visible to the gene to come from both parents. A recessive gene can thus be hidden for generations before it meets a similar gene and the color is visible in the offspring.

Primer colors

Black and brown are what one might call the basic colors of the Kelpie. They are always the foundation of the other color variations. Black is dominant to brown is recessive. For it to become brown offspring, there must be a brown gene from each parent. A brown and black with only black gene can only get black puppies, all puppies are the carriers to brown as the brown parent can only give brown to their offspring. Following are examples of provparningar. The dog that is on top is the color visible to the naked eye, while the dog is behind the hidden gene.

Dilute colors

Dilute is a recessive gene, both parents must carry the gene for the offspring will be either fawn or smokeblue. Two brown parents with dilute gene can only be fawn puppies while black parents with brown and dilute genes can provide both fawn and smokeblue.

Tan colors

Tan means that the dog is colored with lighter markings on legs, shoulders, nose and cheeks. Just as diutegenen tan is a recessive gene.

Shaded

There are Kelpies with a slight hint of tan markings on legs and face, hence the name shaded which means shade in English. A so-called genuine shaded Kelpie carries tananlag while a kelpie who may only have tan on the legs is a kelpie who has a predisposition for the lighter shade of brown.

Two possible but not approved color options

Blue and tan and fawn and tan are two possible colors of the Australian Kelpie, but still not approved. Some of these variants have never been born to the breed but are in Austrlian Stock Dog / Working Kelpie where the colors also are approved.