Silver
 

This is Nellie, She was our first yorkie. She is silver.

She is so pretty. :aimeeyork:aimeeyork:aimeeyork:aimeeyork

Awwwwwwww pretty girl. Are you going to breed her to your new boy? Have you got some new pix of him?

I'm not sure yet. I bought a little girl out of California that carries for party, gold, and Chinchilla. Her name is Shyla. I was actually searching for a male to breed with her when I bought Asti. I can't wait to see what they produce.

Why do people want to change the beautiful Yorkie?

His coloring looks like Lexi's coloring some. He is beautiful congrats on your new addition Hugs Cheryl & Lexi:aimeeyork

These colors have always been here. They were bred away, but the recessive genes were still there. If you look back into the history of the yorkie, you will even see white ones. The AKC color for the yorkie was even black in the beginning..

WHY NOT? Why not add more colorful, unique, interesting hues to a beautiful little dog?
Keeping all the standards that make a Yorkie, just add colors?

My thoughts are, why not allow and accept the color genes that were introduced years ago through the unregistered/non pedigreed foundation stock that started this breed? These recessive color genes are in many of our yorkies; it just takes the right breeding (carrier to carrier) to get the off color to show up. Being off color, doesn't make the yorkie any less a yorkie - they have the same breeding and bloodlines as their accepted traditional colored parents and siblings have.

This is a breed registry, not a coat color registry! Off colors have been showing up since the early 1900's, as well as showing up in highly regarded and sought after bloodlines. We are not trying to change the beautiful yorkie, only trying to get people to understand genetics better; how recessive genes work and then hopefully people will not think the same way as they did back in the early 1900's when science and genetics was not understood.

Chinchilla Gene?
 

The parti gene and chocolate genes are pretty easy to understand and to visualize. Gold is a bit different though.

Our standard adult yorkie color is blue and tan. They are born black and tan and their black markings are a result of an agouti gene which restricts the black coloring to certain areas on the dog, in the yorkies case, it restricts the black to form a "saddle" pattern on the adult yorkie.

The standard adult yorkie color is also "blue". The blue color is a result of a grey gene which changes the black markings to a blue or grey color as the dog ages. Adults who are black and tan (or black and gold) lack the grey gene - if they had 1 grey gene, they would be blue (grey).

There are other types of agouti genes which restricts black markings to certain areas or in certain patterns. Sable (an agouti gene) will cause intermittant black hairs to appear in a dogs coat, normally along the topline or upper portion of the dogs body.

Golden yorkies seem to lack the saddle agouti gene but many seem to have a sable agouti (see attached photo of golden pup with black hairs intermingled in the golden coat).

Thank you Sue! That helps somewhat. But what about this Chinchilla. I have never heard of it except on the above website.

Chinchilla gene continued...
 

Sorry I hit the wrong button ...

Some goldens are clear coated (no black hairs intermixed), some are sable goldens (having black hairs mixed within the gold). None have black or grey saddles - otherwise they'd be traditional colored - golden's lack the saddle agouti gene that the traditional yorkies have (so neither traditional parent was homozygous for the saddle agouti gene and neither parent passed 1 saddle gene onto the golden pup).

Ok, so Goldens vary in shades from a light platinum blond to a golden red (but so do the rest of our blue and tan yorkies who's "tan" coloring vary from shades of blonde to shades of gold and sometimes almost red). There are genes that modify the intensity of the tan coloring in our dogs - the chinchilla gene is found in canines and does modify the strength of the tan/gold coloring but there are others genes that modify and or dilute the color intensity as well.

I don't know and certainly wouldn't guarantee or promote, that a golden yorkie carries the chinchilla gene. If that's what people want to claim, than I think it's only fair to claim that all yorkies carry the chinchilla gene because the intensity of the tan in our yorkies, varies from one dog to the next. There are some genes or gene modifiers that causes the differences in shades of the tan coloring in our traditional and golden yorkies but I don't know if I'd say it's the chinchilla gene that's causing the shade variations.

I've also attached a photo showing clear coated platinum and golden pups, all attachments courtesy of Cindy Chandler.

I don't know if this helps or confuses - it's just my opinion :-)

Thank you so much, Sue, I really appreciate all the times you explain color genetics and it is always very educational.

Well said!!!

Hey I wanted to share my picture of Katie. Everyone always ask me about her color. I tell them she got mad that I named my Maltese Barbie and she wanted to be Barbie. LOL:yelrotflm:yelrotflm:yelrotflm