Quote:
Originally Posted by JeanieK  The old timeers believed that the gene that causes the red leg, also helps to impove coat quality. I believe that is what I read. So many of them kept a red leg in their program to put back in, what the in breeding took out.
Imagine that a how breeder breeding a yorkie that did not conform to standards, to produce dogs that did conform. |
I have read that part as well. As silky reds (wired coated ones which changed their coat texture while breaking their colors) can bring out the color when bred with a cottony/wooly (but not silky) in its immediate progenies. However, it also comes back down in the succeeding generation of the line.
"Years ago Mrs. Annie Swan, of the Invincia Yorkies, told us to keep one in our breeding program. She said everyone kept a so called "Red". They occasionally appeared from silky coated parents. No one ever showed them, but since they had the ability to return color pattern to it's proper boundaries and the ability to darken the color of a lighter dog when bred to them, they were on occasion bred in. Bred to cottony or wooly texture they usually have little effect. Bred to silk texture they improve color. Bred together they usually produce themselves and occasionally a lovely colored silk dog - but this is the exception."
paragraph lifted from:
Color & Texture article of Joan Gordon
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Color & Texture by Joan Gordon