colour question-what defines a tri-coat?

[KrisK]

Just out of curiosity...Jazz, my male BC, is black and white, however, his underbelly has a fair amount of red hair. My female, Cricket, also black and white, has red hair on both her back legs. Also her black coat is a much deeper or richer black than Jazz..his coat in certain lights almost has a brownish sheen to it. Would they both be considered tri colour? I'm sure this must have been discussed but I wasn't too successful in using 'search'

 

Thanks

[tildy]

I'm not sure ..but duchess is black and white,,with red hair behind both ears..I know she has full siblings from another litter that were red and white BC's..and I was told not sure how true it is that only the male BC determines the red?????????...

[border_collie_crazy]

norally red beind the ears on the the legs on a b/w BC is caused by the sun, Happy had the same thing behind her ears.

[tildy]

she had red behind her ears since she was 2 months old....it's real curly too...lol

[border_collie_crazy]

yup sounds like her hair just got bleached by the sun, the redish hair behind Happys ears is also curly. in general a tri is black, white, and tan, not red.

[urge to herd]

Samantha is a red (or brown) tri, she's mostly red/brown, with classic white chest, belly, blaze and legs. Her 3rd color is a sort of caramel color, along her cheeks, and some edging along her back legs.

 

She looks a lot like RDM's Red Dog, as a matter of fact.

 

Ruth n the BC3

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Black dogs that carry the "red" allele show red through the black. The black in these dogs is more sensitive to factors like dyes in feed (including beet pulp) and sun bleaching.

 

The reason for this is that literally these dogs are red underneath the black - the pigment is there, it just doesn't show because the black is too dark.

 

To check whether your dog is a tri, look under the tail. Tris have greyish hair under the tail.

[karrider]

Originally posted by tildy:

I'm not sure ..but duchess is black and white,,with red hair behind both ears..I know she has full siblings from another litter that were red and white BC's..and I was told not sure how true it is that only the male BC determines the red?????????...

As Red is recessive BOTH parents must carry the gene to produce it so, whoever told you it comes from the male is wrong

regards karin

[tildy]

she is grey white and black...under her tail.and back legs are very very thick grey black and white..but I wouldn't think she would be tri,,would she??? and dumb question .why would sun bleach behind ears??,,,wouldn't other areas bleach first???

[border_collie_crazy]

rebeccas post explains why Happys coat bleaches red in the sun and Mistys does not lol Happys sire is a red merle, so I suppose she just carries the red allele then?

[Journey]

A "Tri" means 3 colors. Not a variation or a shade change of one color, three distinct colors. Mainly you will see Tri markings on the face (eye brows, ears & cheeks)on the legs, front and or rear. And your Tri is generally a brown/cream shade either lighter or darker in variation. My red tri's have no "grey" under their tails

 

Karen

[juliepoudrier]

Perhaps Becca should have said cream instead of grey, but I have seen dogs that as pups had cheek patches, etc., but as adults, the only way you could tell they were tris was to lift the tail and look for lighter fur (not white or black) on the butt or the underside of the tail, which is what Rebecca meant.

 

J.

[tildy]

I didn't think mine was tri..even with lil red behind ears...and the 9 dift shades of black..under her tail and down her back legs...lol

[Miztiki]

I guess Boyden is a tri, right? But I didn't know if I should use that term since he's not a purebred BC.

[laurie etc]

I whelped a litter of pups for someone -(actually Mark B's Jody's litter) and it was cool to look under the tails of each pup as they were born to check for "tri". They were all smooth coats, and as I recall, the whole litter ended up tri's to some extent. Another litter I just helped with was 4 red pups, and 3 of the 4 were tri's - very obvious that the one girl had "no tan" under her tail. Like Julie said - sometimes it's not as obvious as the adult hair grows in and covers up the tiny tri spots. I have also seen ABCA papers on dogs that are listed as Black and White, who are actually tri's. The breeder either didn't notice, or didn't care....

[juliepoudrier]

Miztiki,

Tri is not a color exclusive to border collies (lots of herding breeds and others, various terrier breeds and hounds, for example, come in tri-color), so you are perfectly right to call Boy a tri.

 

J.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Grey is a techinical term relating to the agouti locus, which all this (tri, brindle, and sable) is connected to. In reds the undercoat color would be a cream, I guess (though some darker reds will show a light slate color, and all black colored dogs should). In brindles the hairs will be banded and the light/body color/tri color will continue down the legs, and gradually turn into the brindling pattern. In agouti grey dogs, the ligher color (consisting of white/grey/color banded hairs) will continue down the back of the legs, up under the belly and possibly extend up the flanks.

 

I'm not sure, but if your tri dog does not show grey under the tail, you may have a saddleback sable instead. Is the tri very deep and strongly colored? Either that or you are missing the grey hairs.

 

Your dog can carry the tri modifier and not have it fully expressed. These dogs have a few light hairs under the tail and tend to fade under the ears and on the hocks (where the tri color would normally appear). Again, the color is there but the black covers it up for some reason (a modifier). I have a dog like this, and Ann's dam and sire are both this type, also. Ann's sister Rave and brother Hac are solid b/w, but her sister Tess is genetically tri. All her other littermates were expressed tri (including a tri red that faded).

[MrSnappy]

Originally posted by urge to herd:

She looks a lot like RDM's Red Dog, as a matter of fact.

 

Oh yeah? Prove it! You've been telling me that for, like, 5 years and you never show me a photo. I demand a photo!

 

RDM (who believes that Red Dog, just as with all teenagers everywhere, is terminally unique)

[urge to herd]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm such a wienie when it comes to computer stuff. I got the digital camera, I got the program loaded onto the computer. But,I'm just sure that something will either a)I won't be able to make it work or I'll make the computer blow up.

 

All right, I'm making calls to the Rent A Computer Geek places to see if I can get somebody to come hold my hand thru this.

 

Then you'll see! Oh, and of course RD is terminally unique, Sammi just resembles him. A lot.

 

Ruth n the BC3

[jrid]

My female smooth coat is tri-colored. She is black and white with black and red freckles on her legs. Also, some of the hair under her tail is brown.

[Joe Anne]

What exactly do you have to do to be able to send pictures? I have recently gotten a digital camera, and know how to upload and email photos. Can I just email a photo??? I would love to send a picture of my Phoenix...

Oh... he has tan, white and black on his face and hind legs, does this make him tri coat??

JoeAnne Mirra, Sitka Phoenix and crew

[Tassie]

JoeAnne - you could probably find the instructions by doing a seach - but anyway - you need to have the photos on a website somewhere that allows linking to other external sites. Many here use a free hosting site like Photobucket, or in my case www.mypetpages.net . Once your photos are there, open up the one you want, then copy the url from your browser address bar. Then you post here as normal, and where you want to put your picture, hit the IMAGE button (seond last in the series of grey buttons below the message window). That opens a dialog box in which you paste your picture's url, then hit OK. You can preview the post to check that everything is OK. Try to keep your picture a reasonable size, both for the sake of those of us with slow dial-ups, but also because some photohosting siteshave daily download limitations. Hope all of that made sense.

 

Oh, and I'd say that does make Phoenix a tri - we await photographic evidence.

 

Ruth and RDM - can we totally mangle the language and say that Sammi and Red Dog are equally unique?