Vintage

We does very occasionally have blue whippet puppies, but they are rare and we always have a waiting list for blues. Here's a little more than you'd probably care to know about the genetics of blue whippets, and why they are so rare.

The color "blue" (kind of a gunmetal gray) (see examples below) is genetically black with an added dilute gene to make it a "washed out" black, or "blue." If the dilute gene is not present, the dog would be black. Other dilute colors include blue fawn, blue brindle, and blue fawn brindle.

Dog coat color genetics is an evolving field, and since whippets have so many colors, we are constantly learning more about the different colors and their inheritance. To get any of the dilute colors, it is currently thought that BOTH parents must carry and pass on the dilute gene. This is a two step process. Just because two parents carry the dilute gene does not mean you will get a whelping box full of blue and blue fawn puppies. You will still get other colors, because some puppies did not receive two copies of the dilute gene. But they may have received one copy of the dilute gene, so if bred to another dog with the dilute gene, they COULD produce dilutes. Or they might not carry the gene at all, even if their parents did. The only way to tell is to breed the dog, wait and see.

Theoretically, dogs can pass down the dilute gene recessively for many generations without producing dilute puppies. However, just looking at it mathematically, it is unlikely that a dog with a dilute ancestor several generations back is still carrying the gene. You cannot tell these carriers by looking at them, because they are not themselves dilute. If a dog's littermates have produced dilute puppies, the dog in question MIGHT carry the dilute gene, but he could just as easily not carry the gene. So far the only solid way to tell is to breed a litter. Even then, one litter might not tell the whole story. If it's a small litter, it won't be a large enough sample to tell if the dilute gene is present. It's hard to justify breeding several litters of the same two dogs just to tell what coat colors are possible, so in today's whippets it's largely a guessing game.

The only want to GUARANTEE dilute puppies is to breed a dog who IS blue or a dilute color to another dog who IS dilute. Then you will definitely get SOME dilute puppies, but because other colors are dominant, there will be some puppies of other colors as well.

That's why we usually have a waiting list for blue puppies, and we encourage puppy people to look beyond color for their new whippet -- just as you shouldn't choose a potential spouse entirely based on looks!

Blue whippets

Rini (Timbreblue Colors Outside the Lines)
Rini is solid blue with a white blaze on her face and white socks. We call this "blue with white trim."

Cobalt (Rini's litter brother) is blue and white.