White Tail Newf

[Jentarin]

Bessa has been showing some white on her hindparts, and I had figured that she would lose it when she blew her puppy coat. Then we ran into this guy at the dog park last weekend, and I had to call that into question. Not that it's a major deal, I'm just curious if anyone knows how common this is?

 

[YorkvilleNewfie]

That's not a white tail, just lighter brown. It's not uncommon for browns to have a darker, richer shade of brown coat over the topmost parts of the body and lighter furnishings on the rear, undercarriage, furnishings and tail.

 

[YorkvilleNewfie]

It's actually even addressed in the Newfoundland Breed Standard: "Also typical are a
tinge of bronze on a black or gray coat and lighter furnishings on a brown or gray coat."

http://www.ncanewfs.org/standard.shtml

 

[YorkvilleNewfie]

Bronzing of black and gray coats as well as the lighter furnishings on browns and grays is also common as the adult coat starts coming in, during coat blows or can even be affected by the iron content in water or exposure to the sun (think sun bleaching. Some coat conditioners even have built-in "sunscreen" to try to prevent this from happening).

 

[Jentarin]

Good to know! I knew about the "bronzing" and lighter coloring, I just didn't expect it to be that extreme. Guess it will make it easier to find the poopy particles that get stuck...

 

[plafleursr]

We have a Brown and he has gray in his tail. When he has the trail up and flipped over you can really see it. He is a rescue from a messed up litter. Had two blacks as pups then they changed to a dark brown. There where two grays and a brown.

 

[YorkvilleNewfie]

Had two blacks as pups then they changed to a dark brown.

I can see how someone might think this, as some browns are very, very dark...but genetically a dog is whatever color it is from the very moment of conception until death. A black dog is genetically a black dog and will remain a black dog forever, just like a brown, a gray, etc.

As for your brown boy's tail, it may appear gray, but I can assure you that your brown dog is all brown

 

[fall3n-ang3l]

Bernie is black,he did have a white bit on his chest but that went when he got his adult fur, but he had the tint of brown and I thought he was changing his colour as his dad was brown until one day I was chatting to our nice delivery driver who has 2 newfs and he said it was blowing his coat lol I felt a right fool :roflmao:

 

[chumleysma]

My girlfriend's brown had that same color on his pantaloons.