What Color Would Samoyeds be if They Weren't White?

If you’ve used a service like Embark on your Samoyed, you’ll have seen that most of the coat pattern genetics come back as “no impact on coat color/pattern”. This is because Samoyeds are fixed for a recessive gene that makes them white. In this context, “fixed” means there is only one possible allele in the gene pool for this locus. Aside from making them white, this gene also masks all other coat colors and patterns. You can read more on what this gene is and why they are all white on my other post here.

Way back in the day, before we selected for white, Samoyeds used to come in many colors. Peter The Great is probably the most famous example, being a striking black Samoyed. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to get a colorful Samoyed without outcrossing to another breed. But thanks to technology we can take a peek at what is hiding underneath the white. It is fun to decipher what is there and think about what might have been. What would Samoyeds look like if they weren’t white? Let’s find out.

Before We Begin

To get the most out of this explanation we need to cover some background topics. Think of a locus as a specific location on the DNA strand. Each location can hold two alleles, or genes. Alleles are given names based on what locus they appear at. For example, all Extension locus alleles use E’s. Capital letters indicate dominant genes, while lowercase letters indicate recessives. When writing about what genes a dog has, you’ll often see this notation- e/e, S/sp, Ay/at, etc. These represent locus results, so for example e/e notates two ‘e’ results on the Extension locus. If a dominant allele is present, it is always listed first (so E/e, not e/E).

Example 1 – Pixel

Pixel Embarked as e/e B/B D/D Kb/Kb a/a N/N m/m Sp/Sp. Now that’s a lot of gibberish! What does it mean?

e/e – Pixel is homozygous for the recessive light fur allele on the E locus

B/B – Pixel is homozygous for Black skin pigment on the B locus

D/D – Pixel is homozygous for normal (not diluted/blue/lilac) pigment on the D locus

Kb/Kb – Pixel is homozygous for dominant solid coloring, often called “Dominant Black” (so no fun patterns) on the K locus

a/a – Pixel is homozygous for recessive solid coloring, often called “Recessive Black” (so doubly no fun patterns here) on the A locus

N/N – Pixel is homozygous for Saddleback markings (think the classic German Shepherd pattern) on the N locus but it wouldn’t impact her color since she isn’t at/- on the A locus

m/m – Pixel is homozygous for not merle on the M locus

sp/sp – Pixel is likely homozygous for piebald type white spotting (embark didn’t test this locus when I wrote this initially but I was correct and she is sp/sp) on the S locus

If Pixel Weren’t White

There are a couple of layers here because of how canine genetics works. The E Locus hides everything except for B, D, and S loci. The K locus hides expression of A and N. The A Locus can hide the expression of N too. So, if Pixel wasn’t e/e, what color would she be? She’s a pretty boring example. Underneath her recessive red, she is solid black (thanks to B & K Loci) with 50-100% of her body being covered by white spotting (thanks to being homozygous for piebald on S locus). If she weren’t dominant solid on the K locus, we could see her A locus pattern, which is also solid black (so exciting, right?), and she’d still have 50-100% white coverage since nothing can override that locus. I’ve illustrated the process below of removing the recessive red and then the white to reveal the black dog underneath.

Example 2 – Kashmir

Now let’s do Kashmir. She Embarked as e/e B/B D/D Ky/Ky a/a N/N m/m S/Sp.

e/e – Kashmir is homozygous for the recessive light fur allele on the E locus

B/B – Kashmir is homozygous for Black skin pigment on the B locus

D/D – Kashmir is homozygous for normal pigment on the D locus

Ky/Ky – Kashmir is homozygous for patterned coloring on the K locus

a/a – Kashmir is homozygous for recessive solid coloring (so no fun patterns here either) on the A locus

N/N – Kashmir is homozygous for Saddleback markings on the N locus but like Pixel this has no impact since she is not tan point on the A locus

m/m – Kashmir is homozygous for not merle on the M locus

S/sp – I’m not sure what Kashmir is on this locus so for a bit of variety lets say she’s got one copy of Solid coloring and one copy of Piebald *(Embark now tests for Piebald and my guess was incorrect here but I’m leaving it for some educational variety)

If Kashmir Weren’t White

Much like Pixel, if Kashmir weren’t e/e then she would be solid black and white. She carries the genes to express patterns on the K locus, but since her A locus only contains alleles for solid coloring, she doesn’t get any fun patterns. Since we are assuming she only has one copy of Piebald, she would be anywhere from 0-50% covered by white markings. Here again you can see the steps of peeling back the recessive red and then the white to reveal the black dog underneath.

Are all Samoyeds that Boring?

Unfortunately, for the most part, yeah. Samoyeds as a breed are fixed for e/e, B/B, and D/D. This means all Samoyeds will have pale fur overtop of black pigment. You will never have a purebred Samoyed with brown, blue (diluted black), or lilac (diluted brown) pigment because those genes do not exist in the gene pool. Other testable things that aren’t present in the breed include H locus Harlequin (a Great Dane exclusive mutation), all types of Merle, Doberman Albinism, melanistic masks, and domino (typical husky) pattern.

However, a few more fun genes are lurking in the breed that Pixel and Kashmir don’t have. If Samoyeds weren’t white, dogs that test as Kb/Ky have the potential of being Brindle (that tiger stripey pattern). It is somewhat unlikely as brindle is a fairly rare pattern, but since current tests cannot differentiate between a Kb/Ky dog and a dog that is Kb/Kbr, Kbr/Ky, or Kbr/Kbr (kb being solid dominant color, kbr being brindle, and ky being other patterns), we cannot rule it out as a possibility. About 35% of the breed carries the Kb (and possibly Kbr) allele. The rest are ky/ky, meaning they’ll show A locus patterns.

For the dogs like Kashmir who are ky/ky and carry for pattern expression, a few A locus patterns are floating around the breed. About 2.5% of the breed carries at least one sable/fawn allele (Ay). 97.5% of the breed carries at least one tan-points allele (at). 88% carry at least one recessive solid color allele (a). Around 30% carry one or more alleles for saddle tan, which will turn tan points into creeping tan (one copy) or a full saddleback pattern (two copies). It’s unclear whether or not wolf gray/agouti (aw) exists in the breed. The percentage of aw isn’t tracked because it is the default (wild type) allele on the A locus. Being such an old breed, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did exist, but it must be rare because I have yet to come across a tested purebred with an aw allele.

Around 85% of Samoyeds have at least one copy of piebald-type white spotting. White spotting technically appears on top of the e/e pale fur, but on many dogs, it is impossible to tell where the e/e ends and white spotting begins because we have selected for such pale e/e expression. The above images show the variations of white possible with piebald alleles. There are a handful of Samoyeds out there with prominent biscuit markings. Biscuit comes from having pheomelanin pigment that is just dark enough to visually distinguish it from the piebald white.

What is your pup hiding?

I tested my two with Embark’s Breed + Health Kit. There are a handful of DNA testing companies out there and many of them will work for this exercise. I like Embark because they continue to update their tests and will backfill old tests with new discoveries when they can. For example, at the time of writing this article, they did not have a test for S locus piebald. Shortly after I published this, they announced they would be including it. Within a few weeks, there were piebald results on both of my dog’s Embark profile pages. Since then, they’ve also added testing for red intensity (the gene responsible for Samoyeds being white instead of gold or red), ticking/roaning, and a handful of health tests.

If you have done a color panel on your dog and would like help reading the results or would like a custom illustration, please use my contact page to send me a message! If you would like to try to figure it out for yourself, Embark made a handy coat color flowchart. To imagine what your dog would look like if they weren’t white, follow this chart as if they were EE or Ee.

Extras

For more information on Coat Color Genetics in dogs, I learned most of what I know from this fantastic website and this awesome Facebook group.

All percentages and stats were sourced from the *MyDogDNA public database of Samoyeds.

*Wisdom Panel bought out Optimal Selection (The company behind MyDogDNA) and has taken down the public database so unfortunately you will just have to take my word for the percentages in this article

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