Canine Coat and Nose Color Testing

Presence of black-and-tan and sable colors;
The Belgian Shepherds which are long haired occur in two color varieties, with separate names. The Groenendael are black and the Tervuren are sable colored dogs. Groenendael can be black from the genotype "aa" at the Agouti locus, which is recessive to sable or from another gene with a dominant genotype which we designate as "K". All Tervuren are "kk". Groenendael that have one "K" allele could be black and yet have pups that are either black-and-tan or sable if mated to certain other carriers. Since it is undesirable to have black-and-tan pups which cannot be shown in most countries, DNA testing for the at allele is useful. Groenendael that carry the a^y allele may have sable pups which could be registered as Tervuren in some countries. The table below explains the interaction with the "K" locus, but DNA results will be reported for the "A" locus only.