A Fasinating Look At Schnauzer Color Genetics
:One Litter Of Puppies With Two Fathers
During our Rosie Litter we decided to try a small ( and admittedly impatient ) experiment. One that turned into a fascinating real life lesson in schnauzer color genetics.
For this breeding, Rosie was paired with two males: Axel and Jenga. It allowed us to explore how coat color and other hints can reveal puppy parentage without immediately relying on DNA testing
Meet The Mom and Dad(s):
Axel?
Rosey & Pups
Jenga?
Rosey is a liver-based Miniature Schnauzer, identifiable by her brown nose, lighter facial coloring, and green eyes. Liver is a recessive colour, meaning both parents must carry the liver gene to produce liver-based puppies.
Axel is a liver tan male who has reliably produced healthy, beautiful puppies in the past. Being liver-based himself, Axel can only sire liver-based puppies.
Jenga is our red wheaten boy. At the time of breeding, he was only eight months old, and we didn’t expect him to successfully sire puppies yet. Jenga is black-based, which is clear from his black nose and dark brown eyes—a key detail that made identifying parentage possible.
How Coat/Eye Color Can Reveal The Dad:
The most important rule at play is simple:
Liver is recessive
Black is dominant
Two liver-based dogs cannot produce a black-based puppy. This means any black-based puppy in Rosey’s litter must be sired by Jenga.
Who's your daddy?
Black/Silver Boy
This puppy is black based which means it can not be an Axel puppy and the Father must be Jenga
Liver Pepper Boy
Both Axel and Rosey are liver tan but only Jenga carries the wolf sable pattern that can produce liver pepper and salt and pepper so even though this is a liver based puppy Axel can not produce the liver pepper pattern.
Therefore this is another Jenga puppy.
White & Wheaten puppies:
White and Wheaten puppies are born with pink noses and pads of their feet that darken over the course of the first couple weeks to black or brown.
Both wheaten puppies are not as dark as Jenga. Both Axel and Jenga have red markers. Axel is a 6/10 red and Jenga is a 7/10 red but each have markers in very different places.
White Boy
This puppy’s pads and nose are already looking to be turning black, which would make this puppy black based and therefore a Jenga puppy.
Wheaten Boy
The nose and pads on this wheaten boy look like they will be black.
Meaning another probable Jenga puppy.
Wheaten Girl
The nose and pads of this Wheaten girl are still light but are slightly leaning towards looking brown.
If they turn black then she is a Jenga puppy.
If they turn brown she could be a Jenga OR an Axel puppy and we would need to DNA test her to find out for sure.
Surprisingly, it appears that four out of five puppies may be sired by Jenga, despite his young age at the time of breeding. While this pairing of more than one sire is not something we typically do it offered a unique opportunity to observe Miniature Schnauzer colour genetics in action.
No matter who their sire is, all of Roseys puppies are:
Purebred Miniature Schnauzers
Healthy and thriving
Beautifully coloured and developing well
We’re excited to watch them grow and will share updates as their colours and personalities continue to emerge.