The Genes behind the beauty

Those beautiful tan eyebrows, cheeks, and legs found on almost every Australian Shepherd and Bernese Moutain Dog are also known as "phantom" in the poodle world. Phantom is a color trait that depends on many other genes t express clearly. There are 6 main loci that result in changes in our doodle coats: E, K, A, B, S, M, as well as the intensity subloci. The E locus determines if a dog will have a red/yellow coat, or express the coloring determined by the other loci. 

The K locus determines if a dog will express the pattern on its A locus(ky/ky) or if it blocks the pattern, and only expresses the traits on the B, S, and M loci(kb/kb or kb/ky).

The A locus determines if a dog that is ky/ky on its K locus will have phantom(at/at or at/a) or sable(ay/ay or ay/at or ay/a) or wild sable(aw/at or aw/a) pattern. 

The M locus determines if a dog will be merle(M/m or M/M) or non-merle(m/m).

The S locus determines if a dog will be solid(S/S), abstract(S/Sp), or parti(sp/sp).

The B locus determines if a dog will be black(B/B or B/b) or brown(b/b).

The E locus determines if a dog will be red/yellow(e/e) or express other loci results(E/e or E/E). 

If a dog is e/e(recessive red/yellow) it will be red/yellow and cover all other loci with the exception of having a brown or black-based skin/nose as determined by the B locus. 

If a dog is E/e or E/E, it will then have a base coat determined by the B locus, a pattern determined by the K and A locus, white spotting determined by the S locus, and can be merle or non-merle on the M locus. 

These traits are behind all dogs, and the embark DNA results are available for all our parents. These traits give us the ability to determine the theoretical percentages of traits that will be passed down to the puppies of tested parents. Feel free to reach out if you have questions about the traits of our dogs or your dogs! 

In common words he is a non-merle, black based, phantom abstract dog. See him by clicking the following link to our parent's page, and scrolling to "Riften"

At first, the idea of a dog carrying diseases sounds horrible! However, in genetics, it can be a harmless trait. Most diseases that affect doodles require two copies of the disease to affect the dog. The way to ensure all puppies are safe is to test the parents and ensure carriers are not bred to other carriers. A dog with one copy of a disease, when bred to another dog that carries a copy of the same disease, has a chance to produce puppies that have two copies(affected!) We ensure all of our puppies have a 0% chance of being affected by any diseases, allowing us to have confidence in our genetic health guarantee. Purebred dogs have diseases that are common for the breed, so it is important to test for breed-specific diseases, as well as diseases that may affect the breed the purebred is mixing with. Mixing breeds not only lowers the chance that there will be a disease carrier overlap but also provides hybrid vigor for the resulting puppies.