Now River Otter's Genetics 101

[RiverOtter]

Positive vibes for your mule.

Ah gorgeous. I love mules!

Thank you. We're pretty sure at this point she is totally out of the woods. Aggie is a special creature, she's like everything good about mules wrapped up in one package. I'm not ashamed to say when I found her with her head in the bag I burst into sobs, I was that sure she'd killed herself.

If you ever get a chance to play with mules, do!

 

[RiverOtter]

However.... socks/stockings.. You mention they're hard to get. Thinking back on every mule I've ever seen with them, about 90% were gaited. Out of TWH or SSH mares. Does it have to do with the tobiano gene? It's a common pattern in TWHs and SSHs.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! To get horse-type markings on a mule, the mother has to carry a pinto gene (I forget which one off the top of my head, I'll pull up my links later, it's either tobiano or sabino). If you want a spotted mule, you have to breed to a spotted jack, because donkey spotting and horse spotting are different.
To get a deep red (non-flaxen) chestnut mule I believe requires a human sacrifice under a blood moon

 

[Painted Calls]

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! To get horse-type markings on a mule, the mother has to carry a pinto gene (I forget which one off the top of my head, I'll pull up my links later, it's either tobiano or sabino). If you want a spotted mule, you have to breed to a spotted jack, because donkey spotting and horse spotting are different.

Betting it's tobi. Yes - def different.

To get a deep red (non-flaxen) chestnut mule I believe requires a human sacrifice under a blood moon

I laughed out loud. No joke!

 

[Peaches Lee]

I have zero experience with muleys. I think that donks and muleys are the cutest souls ever though.

I do remember awhile back there was quite the hullabaloo about muleys or donks or both being admitted to the FEI level dressage--lots of people against it. I thought it was funny because, how many are there really going to be?, and if you are that scared of getting your butt kicked--well, there's no hope for ya!

 

[RiverOtter]

The final decision was any equine born from a mare, so technically, a Zorse could compete, but I don't think that's happened yet.

 

[Painted Calls]

I have zero experience with muleys. I think that donks and muleys are the cutest souls ever though.

I do remember awhile back there was quite the hullabaloo about muleys or donks or both being admitted to the FEI level dressage--lots of people against it. I thought it was funny because, how many are there really going to be?, and if you are that scared of getting your butt kicked--well, there's no hope for ya!

It's because they're secretly scared. They know mules are superior in every way.

 

[Geena]

when you breed GSDs, the rule is to breed in a sable or bi-color every other generation, because the ones that look like Rin Tin Tin (called saddle backed) are born black, but have a fading gene. If you don't continually breed in dogs that don't' have it, you get too many copies of the fading gene and the dog just ...keeps...fading

Very interesting thread with some beautiful horses.
I don't know anything about horse color genetics, but I do know a good bit about GSDs. The above is not entirely accurate.
If you select and breed from black and tans that have rich dark color you end up with dogs that are mostly rich and dark in color. If you look at show GSD pedigrees you will mostly see generations and generations of almost nothing but blk & tans. You don't have to breed in other colors, although I suppose if one has fading/dilution genes in their lines they may need to, but that's not typical.
You can see even at 5 months that your pup has some fading/dilution genes. For comparison here's my blk & tan girls at 5 months.

 

[Painted Calls]

Very interesting thread with some beautiful horses.
I don't know anything about horse color genetics, but I do know a good bit about GSDs. The above is not entirely accurate.
If you select and breed from black and tans that have rich dark color you end up with dogs that are mostly rich and dark in color. If you look at show GSD pedigrees you will mostly see generations and generations of almost nothing but blk & tans. You don't have to breed in other colors, although I suppose if one has fading/dilution genes in their lines they may need to, but that's not typical.
You can see even at 5 months that your pup has some fading/dilution genes. For comparison here's my blk & tan girls at 5 months.

View attachment 3262359
View attachment 3262361

Gorgeous girls!

 

[RiverOtter]

@Geena, gorgeous pups!

But listen, while the colors may be black and tan/red, and the dogs may look very similar, the genetics are different. You can tell by 5 weeks if a pup has the fading gene and you can't keep breeding fading gene (as/as) dogs together and keep color. Your gorgeous ladies are certainly black and tan colored - and genetically a bi-color. Dogs that do not fade to have a saddle are the dogs you need to keep in a breeding program to continue to have rich colored dogs. So you need to breed dogs that look like yours to dogs that look like a GSD stock photo if you want to keep dogs that look like a German Shepherd stock photo instead of having dogs that look like mine
https://www.google.com/search?q=Ger...kA0&bih=625&biw=1366&rlz=1C1AVFC_enUS883US883

Here, this site has a good visual
https://vonhausulv.weebly.com/german-shepherd-color-genetics.html
And this one goes into depth
https://baiuland.it/genetic-colour-transmission-german-shepherd-dog/
If you have a subscription
https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article-abstract/75/4/247/894733?redirectedFrom=fulltext
And if you want to do a color panel and see for yourself
https://www.vetgen.com/canine-coat-color.html

My loves, it is literally my job to study the history and genetics of every animal I possess and be able to answer in-depth questions about it. Most ESPECIALLY if it is something unusual that people are going to have questions about. Since it's a huge part of what keeps my electricity on, I study it endlessly. I know that this makes some people feel I'm a know-it-all, but please notice the huge amount of posts I don't comment on, and those where I ask a ton of questions. I do agritourism and agricultural education, I teach 4H, FFA, homesteading classes and have interns and I don't answer a question unless I've done the research. PM me for my website.

Now, if we want to thread drift into some SERIOUS genetic drama, I also own this;

If you know, you know

 

[RiverOtter]

, and if you are that scared of getting your butt kicked--well, there's no hope for ya!

It's because they're secretly scared. They know mules are superior in every way.

Did you know mules have their own equestrian event where horses just cannot compete and win? It's called the coon hunter's jump, check it;