DEUTSCH DRAHTHAAR UK
The home of the Deutsch Drahthaar in the UK » Coat colour abnormalities in Drahthaars

Severe colour abnormalities are incredibly rare in Drahthaars, yellow roan, tri-colour and predominantly white dogs are severely discouraged and prohibited from breeding in Germany.

Many people wrongly criticise black and white dogs for having some dark brown discolouration on beards and eyebrows, and likewise liver dogs having light brown fringes on their beards. This is not tri-colour but as the condition is so rare, even in Germany, most people have never seen one so lack experience. For years since I have argued with people over this topic but they always wanted proof.

So you can imagine my excitement when I heard of a litter in Germany with some confirmed tri-colour pups. Despite the stigma attached to tri-colour in Germany, the owner allowed me to photograph the litter (for which I am very grateful).

As I have always maintained, tri-colour is a very distinctive pattern gene of tan markings, as seen in the dobermann for example - tan points above the eyes, corner of the mouth and often extremities of the body, tail, muzzle and feet. This puppy, and his hairy litter mate show the pattern perfectly. Both were black and white pups.

I did some research in the VDD studbooks for the 10 years between 1997-2006 to see if I could find any other litters with colour abnormalities to see if they were genetically related. To my surprise I only found 2 other litters in that time, one tri-colour litter and one false colour litter (white).

As you can see from this extract from the VDD studbook of 2005 the litter with tricolour pups was the ‘F’ litter of Kapellenhof. A dog (Felix) and a bitch (Fee) were officially recorded as ineligible for breeding due to tricolour markings, however, the rest of the litter were perfectly correct. This time the whole litter was braunschimmel (liver & white), so tri-colour can occur in liver and white dogs.

I looked through the pedigrees of these two litters and did find a number of common bloodlines involved (but it would be unfair to the stud dog owners to point these out as they have produced so many perfectly correct litters).

It should also be noted that I could only research dogs that had been officially recorded, so we know nothing of the others, There is always the suspicion that other tri-colour pups have been born in litters of other kennels over the years and hidden from the wardens (although it would be strictly against the VDD rules). So maybe this litter is not truely the only tricolour litter, simply the only one to be officially recorded.

The other abnormal coloured puppies I found recorded was two false coloured dogs in the ‘H’ litter of Vom Rauberkrug in 1997. Here Held and Hektor were recorded as being weiss, Fehifarbe which translates as white false coloured.

The fascinating thing about this litter is that it was a repeat mating of a mating done some 7 months earlier and that there were no incorrect colours recorded in the first litter.

So my conclusions from this research is that;

1. Firstly, colour abnormalities appear to be incredibly rare - I looked through stud records of over 5,000 litters (32,000 puppies) to find evidence of 2 tricolour puppies - but it is, nonetheless, absolutely banned from the breeding programmes in the VDD.
2. Secondly, tri-colour is a pattern gene not just a colour. The placement of the colour is absolutely distinctive.
3. Thirdly, tri-colour can occur in either black/white and liver/white and so one would assume that it could be possible in solid liver also.
4. Finally, tri-colour markings are very visible from a few weeks of age, however, this could allow people to try to avoid registering those puppies and hide the problem.

So now we know the facts and what to look for - Breed judges please take note.