shot in the dark but putting out a query for my fellow dog color genetics nerds! does anyone have more information about saddle-back patterns in rough collies?
i noticed while looking at stellina’s embark results recently that under the coat color genes, she actually tested NI for saddle tan - II being the typical tan point pattern seen in tri-color collies (and other dogs like dobes, rottweilers, etc), and NI or NN being saddle-backed (i.e. GSDs). according to embark, this doesn’t have an impact on her coat color since she is genetically sable (AyAt, so sable carrying tri, instead of AtAt tri). i looked through a few pages of collies on embarks (both dogs related to her and just a few random collies) and while it isn’t super common, I did see several other sable dogs that were also NI, and I think at least one NN. however none of these dogs were also atat, so none of them would actually show the pattern. all the atat dogs i found were II, aka no saddle gene.
i did find a few images of dogs that appear to be rough collies with the saddle-back pattern, but i couldn’t find any real sources for them or discussion of them aside from “yeah this happens sometimes i guess.” (most of the pictures i couldn’t find a source besides pinterest, or were being discussed in the context of border collie colors).
img source (not a great website but it’s not pinterest at least)
but, it seems weird to me that given how easily i was able to find collies on embark that were NI or NN (so genetically saddled), and how often collies come in tricolor (second most common color after sable), that there wasn’t more information/photos of saddled dogs. because given that, it seems like they should be a known thing, but i’d never heard of saddled collies before this little research trip. are they just soft-culled and kept secret? are they just lumped into the “dark sable” category? is there sorcery afoot??
so…. anyone got any information on this to feed my curiosity?
Responding to this on my Naruto blog so sorry 😂
While I don’t personally know the answer. I do have some theories.
It is entirely possible a shared ancestor had hung papers. You see this with Merle poodles with purebred registration. Merle is NOT a poodle color. But if the dog and subsequent generations are crossed back to purebred you can breed out the genetic markers. I hear it takes as little as 3 generations to breed out. It’s also why someone adopted a Merle chow who looked 100% chow besides the Merle. They embarked her, and it returned 100% chow 😂 We know those results are BS but the genetic markers aren’t there to say otherwise.
I went snooping through some coat color pages and one mentioned an off standard grey coloration but didn’t mention the black saddle which I find suspicious (like why acknowledge one and not the other?)
However it is entirely possible it is an off-standard color that gets culled when it pops up from time to time. I know Chinese Crested Dogs are capable of producing a purebred SMOOTH coat variety. It’s extremely rare. And breeders don’t advertise it and don’t breed for it. But I found this discussion on a Chinese Crested Facebook group which was geared towards a higher professional standard than the average breed group. It had a lot of old time breeders who knew a lot about breed history.
I would recommend finding a breed group page specifically for rough collies and asking your question there. If you do, please tell me the result cause I’m curious as well!
