Coat Color Inheritance in basenji

[misspodhradsky]

Ok now i have a question. I am going to put the colors on here and see if someone can help me determine how i would go about seeing what she is.

Mom is a red and white. Dad is a black and white.
Moms mom and dad are Red and White and Black and white
Dads mom and dad are red and white and black and white.

if you need further back i can go. but i guess i still dont understand how to for sure do that part. I am starting to get where everything comes from but i cant for some reason put it into use! lol

[misspodhradsky]

@Quercus:

Yes..each gene that is represented by the letter pairing is at a different location on the chromosome…so think of it this way. YY (pure for red) Yy (looks red, carries tri, also called trifactored) or yy (tri). Every Basenji has ONE of these combinations. Then every Basenji has KK (black Basenji) or Kk (black basenji that can produce a not black basenji) and kk (not black basenji) Brindle is an on/off gene, so it cannot be ...you have to have brindle to get brindle. So, in other words, every Basenji is either red or tri, and the other genes cause that color to be masked, or covered over with their expression.

OH! ok this makes ALOT more sense to me now! So they HAVe to have a Y and they HAVE to have a K and then…dont they have to have the D? but the break down of KK Kk and kk and then the YY Yy and yy is sooo much easier to follow now! Thank you Quercus! I didnt know you HAD to have a brindle to make a brindle. So Brindle is a recessive then?
WOW that makes soo much sense te more i read! haha Thank you!!

@Quercus:

There are tri-factored blacks, and tri-factored brindles…which is what makes it so difficult for people who are trying NOT to breed trindles.

Ok but this i guess im not sure what this means. what is a tri factored brindle and a tri factored black have to do with breeding trindles. Trindles are the ones that have like a weird tri colored appearance but have like a brindle pattern on their cheeks, right? or brindle on their body? (which makes sense it would be a TRI-briNDLE lol wow im stupid sometimes haha!) but anyways how does having those matter?

@tanza:

You do not need a Tri to get a Tri, but you need two Reds that carry the Tri gene. When we bred my Maggii, who we thought might be Tri factored to a for sure Tri Factored dog, we got 3 reds and 3 tris. If one of the parents are pure for red (Y), you will not get any Tris, you will most likely get Reds that are Tri factored

ok ya that is what i thought. You have to have either a tri parent in the breeding OR you have to have two parents with the tri recessive gene (or maybe its not recessive that is just what i thought) but ok thank you Oh ya ok i think i remember reading somewhere that the pure red you cant get anything but reds but possibly with the tri factor. it makes sense. thank you

[misspodhradsky]

@agilebasenji:

This may help if you're a visual learner:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_2.htm

It makes it much clearer in my mind.

This is so funny because I am REALLLY good at Punnett squares but i guess i only am good at them if i know the beginning part. Since i cant figure out how to determine what she is, i dont know what to put at the top and along the side.

Would it be like this as an example

K k
Y KY Yk
y Ky ky

but i thought there were only similar letters with eachother? idk this i guess confused me more lol thanks for the link tho

[lvoss]

You have to do a 16 square punnet square. So if both are tri factored then mom is kkYy and dad is KkYy then you need to find the gametes produced for each. Mom can produce kY and ky so you would have kY, kY, ky, ky for her side of the punnet. Dad can produce KY, Ky, kY, ky.

[misspodhradsky]

@lvoss:

You have to do a 16 square punnet square. So if both are tri factored then mom is kkYy and dad is KkYy then you need to find the gametes produced for each. Mom can produce kY and ky so you would have kY, kY, ky, ky for her side of the punnet. Dad can produce KY, Ky, kY, ky.

So her mom is kkYy because she is neither black nor brindle (kk) and because she is Red (Y) but carries a tri gene because her grandparent is a tri? is that how you got that?

and then her dad would be Black(K) with …um....idk... and red because his parents were red(Y)? or...i guess im confused on this part. How did you get dads?

ok and how do you do a 16 punnett square? so mom can produce Red puppy (kY) and tri puppy? (ky) and Dad can produce KY (what is this one? a Black and Red? they are both dominant so which would this one be) and a black with a tri factor(Ky) and then a red puppy (kY) and then a Tri puppy?
is that correct?

[misspodhradsky]

Would this be correct?

a tri with a RD mom and a TRI dad, would their "code" be
DDkkyy

and would a BLK with a RD mom and BLK dad be
DDKkYy

And Woulda RED with both parents RED be
DDkkYY

and finally would a RD with a brindle mom and tri dad be
DDK^brkkYy

Just seeing if i get this

Oh and with brindles, how does that work?

DDK^brkYY(red brindle?), DDK^brkYy(red brindle with tri factor?), DDK^brK^brYY(red with brindle factor??), DDK^br K^brYy…idk lol i dont get the brindle part of it.

[lvoss]

Since both parents have a tri grandparent they each have a 50% chance of having inherited the gene. Like Andrea said, until there is a tri offspring, you can't know for sure.

[misspodhradsky]

@lvoss:

Since both parents have a tri grandparent they each have a 50% chance of having inherited the gene. Like Andrea said, until there is a tri offspring, you can't know for sure.

o ok. so you wont know whether its a yy or a Yy? is that what you mean? that is the tri right? sorry i dont understand this part. How do you figure out the brindle part?

[misspodhradsky]

lvoss i have a question. Do you have MSN messenger? I would like to do this quickly to figure it out but i cant really do that on here lol. If you do, would you be willing to talk with me on there so i could maybe figure this out more easily?

[misspodhradsky]

Oh and with brindles, how does that work?

DDK^brkYY(red brindle?), DDK^brkYy(red brindle with tri factor?), DDK^brK^brYY(red with brindle factor??), DDK^br K^brYy(dark brindle?)…idk lol i dont get the brindle part of it.

[lvoss]

Brindle is on the K series. If a Black and white carries brindle it will only produce blacks and brindles. The amount of striping is not related to the whether they have one copy of the allele or two, there is some other controlling factor not yet known.

[lvoss]

I don't have MSN Messanger.

A dog that is red must have at least one Y, the other allele could be Y or y. If it is y then the dog can produce tri. With a black dog, you have to take a guess by what the parents and grandparents are about what is at the locus for red and tri.

[misspodhradsky]

@lvoss:

Brindle is on the K series. If a Black and white carries brindle it will only produce blacks and brindles. The amount of striping is not related to the whether they have one copy of the allele or two, there is some other controlling factor not yet known.

What if a red and white carries the brindle? will it only produce red and brindle?

[lvoss]

Red and whites cannot "carry" brindle. Brindle (K^br) is dominant to k which allows for clear red/tri coats.

[misspodhradsky]

@lvoss:

I don't have MSN Messanger.

A dog that is red must have at least one Y, the other allele could be Y or y. If it is y then the dog can produce tri. With a black dog, you have to take a guess by what the parents and grandparents are about what is at the locus for red and tri.

o ok that is fine. I appreciate you responding to my questions. I hope i am not bothering you. I am just really curious.

Ok so a red will ALWAYS have a Y, capital Y? correct? and then the other is a determining factor? if its Y its a pure red and if its a y then its a tri. and so if its a black dog, that is what everyone is talking about when they say "you have to wait to get a puppy and see if its a tri"? and if it doesnt create a Tri then the Locus is a red? is that right? So do you have to breed it to a Tri to determine this hidden "guessing" factor? i mean to prove it that is..

[misspodhradsky]

@lvoss:

Red and whites cannot "carry" brindle. Brindle (K^br) is dominant to k which allows for clear red/tri coats.

OH YA!!! duh! i knew that! ya the black carries it because it is hidden under the black coat since black stripes wont appear on black coats. Right? Ya i forgot about that, sorry. that was a dumb question.

but anyways so when you say brindle is dom to k which allows clear red and tri coats. This means that a brindle is dominant to (neither black nor brindle) and can produce the red and the tri color puppy but also can produce a brindle pup too tho, correct?

[misspodhradsky]

@misspodhradsky:

Would this be correct?

a tri with a RD mom and a TRI dad, would their "code" be
DDkkyy

and would a BLK with a RD mom and BLK dad be
DDKKYy

And Woulda RED with both parents RED be
DDkkYY

and finally would a RD with a brindle mom and tri dad be
DDK^brkkYy

Just seeing if i get this

Oh and with brindles, how does that work?

DDK^brkYY(red brindle?), DDK^brkYy(red brindle with tri factor?), DDK^brK^brYY(red with brindle factor??), DDK^br K^brYy…idk lol i dont get the brindle part of it.

Ivoss, does this make any sense to you? or am i totally screwed up on it?

[Monika]

The Agouti Locus - A
The Agouti locus controls the formation of the Agouti protein, that in turn is one of the mechanisms that controls the replacement of eumelanin with phaeomelanin in the growing hair. The alleles of the Agouti locus can affect not just whether or not the eumelanin->phaeomelanin shift occurs, but also where on the dog's body this happens.
The probable alleles at the Agouti locus, in order of decreasing dominance, are: Ay, aw, as, at and a.
Dominant Black. Dogs certainly do have a dominant form of black that is indeed very dominant: completely obliterating all formation of phaeomelanin pigment. Traditionally, dominant black has been placed at the head of the Agouti series (symbol As). It is now believed to be part of a separate series (the K series - see below) and not at the Agouti locus at all. This is in keeping with the operation of the Agouti locus in all other mammals that have it: increasing dominance of Agouti locus alleles results in increasing production of phaeomelanin without exception. We mention it here simply because it has long been thought, mistakenly, to be part of the Agouti locus.
So at the top of the Agouti series then we have Ay, Sable - also known as 'dominant yellow' or 'golden sable'. This results in an essentially phaeomelanic phenotype, but the hair tips are eumelanin (black). The extent of the eumelanin tip varies considerably from lighter sables (where just the ear tips are black) to darker sables - where much of the body is dark. It is possible that Ay is not completely dominant over the lower Agouti series alleles, with an Ay heterozygote e.g. Ayat having a darker body. AyAy may be called 'clear red' whereas Ayat can be 'sabled red'. Sable is a very common colour in many breeds of dog, e.g. German Shepherd.
Next we have aw, 'wolf' colour. This is like Ay but the tan is replaced with a pale grey/cream colour and the hairs usually have several bands of light and dark colour, not just the black tip of sable. Seen in the Keeshond, Siberian and Norwegian Elkhound.
Moving down the series we next come to as, 'saddle tan'. This is somewhat like the black+tan allele (below), except that eumelanin is restricted to the back and side regions, hence the name 'saddle'. It is also possible that this is due to another gene interacting with at/at genotypes.
Allele at, 'black+tan' is next. This is a primarily black dog but with tan (phaeomelanin) markings around the eyes, muzzle, chest, stomach and lower legs. Commonly seen in hounds, Dobermann's and Rottweilers.
Finally, at the bottom of the Agouti series is recessive black, symbol a. When a dog is homozygous for recessive black (aa), it will have no phaeomelanin in its coat (unless it is also ee, which is epistatic to the Agouti series - see below). Examples of breeds that exhibit recessive black are German Shepherd and Shetland Sheepdog. Whilst some breeders discount the presence of a recessive black at the bottom of the Agouti series is is consistent with the behaviour of this locus in many other mammals.
The existence of all these alleles in the Agouti series is not certain, nor is the precise order of dominance of the intermediate alleles aw as and at.

[misspodhradsky]

Thank you for this. I dont understand alot of it but i do understand some of it. What is a Agouti? I know alot of ppl have said it. is it like the DNA link where all the different letters create the whole "agouti" i have NO idea on this part. And an allele? that is what? i know but i have no idea how to describe it…i may not even know its the thing im thinking lol

[lvoss]

Agouti is the name given to the location for wolf grey/sable/tri/recessive black. Most geneticists use A (agouti, wolf grey) and a (recessive black) and the superscripts y (red, sable) and t (tri) for the Agouti series. Since the majority of basenjis seem to have either a^y or a^t, it is easier in these type of forums to a letter like Y to describe the relationship.