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Sunday, July 29, 2012

Guess the Genotype #85

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

Image is from Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license



This is a female Irish red and white setter, who is pretty typical for her breed. So, what's her genotype?

First, it must be determined what type of red she is: sable (on the Agouti locus) or recessive red (on the Extension locus). One of the most reliable ways of figuring this out without a genetic test is to look for black hairs. Puppies are especially telling as clear sables, who as adults have little to no sable overlay, will have noticeable overlay as young puppies. If you look at IRWS puppies, you won't see any overlay. So, the breed must be recessive red. That would make this dog ee recessive red.

The intensity of red on this dog is very dark. Going with the theory that the Chinchilla locus alone controls red intensity, this dog would be CC dark red.

The breed as a whole also expresses piebald markings, up to and including extreme white. This dog, however, does not appear to be extreme white. Though its possible she carries extreme white, it's not an overtly common variant in the breed so I don't find this very likely. This would make her spsp piebald.

Lastly, this dog also has ticking. In the breed, you see dogs both with ticking and without. Due to this, I suspect this dog only has one copy of the ticking gene, making her Tt ticked.

So, that's CC ee spsp Tt or dark red piebald with ticking.

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