Dominant colors in animals?

Question

So in dogs, do they have a dominant coat color? I know in humans, brunette will almost always win out as the dominant hair color. But is it that way in dogs or cats? (Particularly mixed breeds) If a yellow and brown dog mate, will their offspring always be brown? Thanks.

Answer 1

With animals and coat colors, there are a lot more genes interacting than with a human's hair color.  For example, horses have a coat color, but then they also have a mane and tail color.  They could genetically be a "black" horse, but also have a modifyer that limits the black to the mane/tail/points, and the body becomes red....creating a bay.  There are other modifyers that create dilutions (like palominos and buckskins).  In cats, you have modifyers that create calico, tabby's, etc.  Also, you have codominant, partial dominant, and full dominant color combinations.  

In dogs, so many breeds have been selectively created with specific coat colors and patterns that its hard to say what color is the most common.  

There are too many genes that play a role in hair type, pattern (spots, stripes, solids, etc), and colors.

As for your question about yellow and brown dogs mating...it depends on if that particular brown/yellow combo is full dominant, or codominant.  In labs, for example, they are codom's.  You breed a black lab to a yellow lab, you get chocolate labs.  You breed a yellow lab to a chocolate lab, you get 50% yellow, 50% chocolate.  In other breeds, like a Jack Russell....you breed a black/white to a brown/white, and you get Tri-Colored black/brown/white.

Its all very confusing because there are too many breeds and independant genes to narrow it down more than that.

Good luck!

Answer 2

black, brown, orange, white, black w/ brown

Answer 3

I don't really know the answer. I have a white female german Shepherd who has one blue eye and one brown. She mated with a brindle colored dog. She had 11 puppies, they all had the blue eyes except one had brown. Their coat colors were white, brown, red and two brindle. So I don't think there is a dominant hair color. Just like people. If the mom has red hair and the father has black hair, they could have a child with either color or several children with different color hair. I guess it depends on which genes they get

Answer 4

The most common hair color in humans is brown, dark brown.

Coloration in animals is more complex than in humans.  Humans have hair, not fur, they are very different.  Coloration in dogs has been influenceds by humans by selecting those colors which please.    

The common pigment of animals is melanin.  This yeilds those passive dark colors that are common in animals, grays and browns.  Generally the more melanin the darker the color.  Other colors, reds, yellows, blues and greens are not made by melanipores.  These colors come from the food the animal eats or its environment.

http://www.hiltonpond.org/ArticleAnimalC...

There has been much work done in identifying coat coloration in dogs.  It is not a simple Mendel trait, there are at 7 to 9  genes involved.  However, the dominant pigment is produced by melanin.  The common coat color of dogs is black/dark brown.

http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogcol...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18052...