Saturday, March 31, 2012

Guess the Genotype #61

Can you guess this dog's genotype? Its breed?

Image is from Flickr.com under a Creative Commons license.



This dog is believed to be a mix between a German shepherd, husky, and chow. This mix sounds reasonable based on the dog's type, coat color, and the shade of its tongue. So, what's this dog's genotype?

To begin, this dog is agouti. You can see the flecked appearance, particularly on the forehead, that is typical of a dog that is agouti. But does this dog carry one of the other alleles on the Agouti locus? It's quite possible. Since this dog looks quite a bit like a German shepherd and the most common color seen in that breed is saddled tan, it may carry saddled tan. For the sake of argument, I am going to say this dog is awas agouti carrying saddle marked.

As for the red in this dog, it is moderate. This would make it most likely that this dog is cchcch moderate red.And that's about it. There is no guarantee as to what other genes this dog may or may not be carrying.

So, that would be awas cchcch or moderate red agouti.

3 comments:

  1. I've no idea really, but this dog bears a strong resemblance to a number of the Alaskan sled dogs I just met in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

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    1. Quite interesting! I could definitely see this dog as possibly coming from a sledding kennel. Sledding dogs are just so varied. It's hard to say, though, since there wasn't a lot of information available on the dog.

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  2. My Buddy is also German shepherd, husky, and chow, and looks a lot like this guy. It would be really cool if you could do a post on the blue/black tongue of some Asian breeds. It seems most mixed breeds with this trait have spotty coloring, so I'm guessing it is an incompletely dominant trait, but info seems sparse on this matter.

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