Cross Breeds

Half of my first litter of German shepherd puppies were born with pink noses does this change?

My german shepherds just had their first litter and half have pink noses, neither parent does. Do puppies noses change colors as they get older?

Public Comments

1. sounds like your puppies might have Vitiligo...check with your vet.. it has to do with their immunities. hope they'll do fine...
2. yes, its just that it hasn't been exposed to the elements yet, give it time.
3. Another backyard breeder breeding a very sensitive and easily mishapen breed of dog...
4. Geez, kids - 3 of you respond, 2 give irresponsibly ignorantly ridiculous "answers", the other totally ignores the question! [cat80620]: We cannot tell - you give us no useful information about the parents and the grandparents. • If you have bred whites, the noses MIGHT darken, but might not - with whites you cannot tell what genes for patterns & colours they carry, and some of those genes do affect the colour of the "leathers" (eye-rims, nose, lips, pads). • If you have some livers in your litter their "leathers" will always be pinkish-purplish-brown. • If you have some blues in your litter their "leathers" normally end up gray. All of those, and a few other things, are produced by pairs of recessive alleles. If a parent has only 1 copy of a particular recessive, there is no effect on that parent, it displays the effect of the dominant allele in that pair. But if that carrier is mated to another carrier of that recessive the result will be about half the pups also being carriers and about a quarter of the pups getting 2 copies (1 from dad, 1 from mum) and so displaying the effect of that recessive. Many dozens of pics have been donated for the pattern-&-colour albums in http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/The_GSD_Source/ but I've not yet had spare time to check & add more than a few of them. But you might be lucky and already see there exactly the sort of nose colour you refer to, and can follow through to see how adult GSDs with that pattern & colour end up. Yahoo doesn't allow me to open the albums for public viewing, so you'll have to join the group, but that is instant. As soon as you receive the Welcome, go to that Home page then click Photos. Be aware that clicking on a thumbnail in an album expands it to give you a better view, and sometimes more information (but as I said, I've not had nearly enough spare time to get stuck into all that), and sometimes an album has more than one page of pictures. That you had to ask your question here tells us that your pooches are not of breeding quality, and that you should not be having a litter yet. If your pooches WERE of breeding quality you would have asked one of their breeders, or your mentor. I just hope that your bit.ch is at least 2 years old and acts very mature - some (often the best ones) are not mentally & physically mature until 3 years old. Before considering having another litter, get stuck into LEARNING: #1: Download http://www.fci.be/uploaded_files/166A1991_en.doc , learn it off by heart, and don't consider breeding from anything that doesn't fit beautifully. Ignore the vague rebel documents used by the KCs of Britain, Canada, the USofA. That FCI#166 is the ONLY Standard to have the approval of the WUSV (World Union of GSD Clubs, with at least one rep from each of 77 GSD nations). #2: Join some of the 300+ YahooGroups dedicated to living with GSDs. Each group's Home page tells you which aspects they want to talk about, and how active they are. #3: Join the nearest GSD club. Participate in its activities, especially shows that give you printed critiques from the judge (to tell you what's good & bad about each pooch) and that run obedience training classes & competitions (so that you discover how your pooches' behaviour & attitudes compare with other GSDs). #4: Find a respected breeder whose dogs succeed well in whichever field you are interested - agility, companion trials, conformation shows, DogSport, obedience tests, rally-o, search&rescue, tracking, whatever - and persuade him/her to mentor you. Les P owner of GSD_Friendly: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/GSD_Friendly "In GSDs" as of 1967