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Colours expected in an ethically bred litter.

If you read the Great Dane Standard, there are 7 official colours (we use the FCI Standard). These colours are the ones people can show and what they breed for. They are:

  1. Black (solid black dog with very little white allowed on toes and chest)
  2. Blue (solid steel grey dog with very little white allowed on toes and chest)
  3. Fawn (golden dog with or without black mask on face)
  4. Brindle (golden dog with or without black mask and tiger-like stipes on body)
  5. Harlequin (white dog with torn black patches)
  6. Mantle (black dog with white muzzle, neck, chest, legs and tail tip)
  7. Merle and Mantle merle (mottled grey with black torn patches)

These are the seven show colours. 

In the past Merle was not a show colour, although produced from ethical harlequin breeding. Many people believed (and some still do) that there are health issues related to merle. This is not true. Not any more than with any of the other colours.

Merle is an ethical colour, a true colour of the Great Dane. Without it there can be no harlequin, since a harlequin is merely a merle with an added (H) gene that “bleaches” the mottled grey white to make the white background of the harlequin. In other words, if merle carries health defects, then so does harlequin.

The problem is not the colour merle. The trouble is the double merle that causes excessive loss of pigment. These dogs have sensory defects (blindness and deafness). Therefore ethical breeders prefer to refrain from breeding two harlequins or two merles or a harlequin and merle. All of the above will result in a portion of the litter being double merles. They are usually very white or white with torn merle patches on them.

The FCI Standard allows what they call Plattenhund (Piebald) under Variety 2: “Also, dogs with basic white colour and large black patches so called “Plattenhunde”.” In other standards (e.g. KC and US) the piebald is seen as a mismark and non-show colour. This is probably due to the possible health issues that could be associated with the piebald gene. The piebald gene is considered an “excessive white gene” and as with double merles, the less pigment, the greater the chance for deafness. It also messes with the “ideal” mantle placement of black torn patches on harlequins. Thus, harlequin breeders tend to avoid using them in their breeding program.

However, it seems that the percentage of piebalds that have hearing issues are less than that of double merles. 

Fawn, brindle, blue and black

Why do we stick to the traditional breed colours?

 

In the Great Dane breed we traditionally have 3 separate colour families, Blue/Black, Fawn/Brindle and Harlequin/Black & White. Many people now ask why we are so restrictive with the colour and why can’t we breed “colour blind” and allow all colours. The reason might come as a shock to many. The restrictions are there to PRESERVE our colours, to stop them from disappearing.

 

In colour genetics you have dominant colours and recessive colours. When a dominant and a recessive meet, only the dominant shows. In other words, if you want a dog to have a recessive colour, you need both parents to carry it to ensure that at least some of the pups show that colour. To have dogs in recessive colours, you have to selectively BREED for those colours.

 

In the Great Dane colour family, Harlequin, Merle and Black are dominant and blue, fawn and brindle are recessive. If we choose to breed colour blind for a decade or two, the only colours left to see will be Merle with little white, heavily marked Harlequin and mismarked blacks. We will effectively REDUCE the number of colours in our breed.

 

If this is allowed, in 50 years’ time people will want the historical blue or fawn or brindle Great Dane and will start to breed for it selectively. Basically putting us right back to where the breed founders were more than 200 years ago! Why do that to ourselves?

 

The rules regarding colour are not there to restrict colours, as it might seem at first glance. Once you bring in basic colour genetics, you will understand that those restrictions are there to prevent our recessive colours from disappearing.