What Colour Is 'liver': Cooked Or Raw?

[dancinbcs]

I have a liver Pointer, often called "brown" by people on the street. He's the colour of cooked liver.

I have often heard people refer to the colour of a brown dogs nose as being 'liver'.

Yep, read my earlier post. Liver is just another name for brown in dogs. It doesn't matter if your breed standard calls it liver, chocolate or red, nor does it matter if it is dark, light or somewhere in between, it is still brown.

[Kavik]

Red in Kelpies! And I think brown or chocolate in Dobes (I got corrected when I called it red )

[Crisovar]

I've always thought it was a way of distinguishing the dark chocs (livers) from the light chocs.

This is how the term Liver is used by my Lab friends. I Prefer the darkest liver/chocs with good pigment and dark eye colour. The majority of gundog breeds that have brown colouring call the colour liver. I don't really know why chocolate became the more used description for labs, maybe they were losing the richness of colour and chocolate as in milk chocolate was a better description.

I don't think it was to make the colour more appealing.

[mita]

I have a liver Pointer, often called "brown" by people on the street. He's the colour of cooked liver.

It was a Pointer owner who first described the colour 'liver' for me....as it fitted her dog. And my impression was it indeed looked like cooked liver.

The words for dogs' colours are fascinating. When I was first just hearing about tibetan spaniels, the breeders would describe one as 'parti-colour'. I thought they were saying, 'party- colour'.....which puzzled me. What colour is a 'party'? Balloons, streamers???

Finally I was told 'parti-colour' meant one solid colour on a background of white. Ah ha!

A friend who's recently adopted an RSPCA dog (in Perth) solved the 'what's the colour problem'. He's named the dog ''Brindle'.

Edited September 27, 2011 by mita

[suziwong66]

Wilbur has a liver toned (darker) top coat and a chocolate toned (lighter) head and undercoat. I don't really care what people call labs: choc or liver. I use the colours to distinguish tone; purely a personal use/definition.

[sandgrubber]

With chocolate/liver Labs, I think far far too much attention goes to the coat colour. I know show people who keep their choco's under shadecloth to avoid sunbleaching. Come on! The Lab should be a working dog. A judge who obviously favoured dark or light yellows would get jumped on. But for some reason, it's considered ok to favour a dark, rich colour. I can see penalizing the pink nose or eye-lining. These are faults in the standard. But going for one shade of an allowed coat colour is wrong.

Yes, there are some sour grapes here. The vet called my very sun-bleached choco 'grizzly' coloured the other day . . . which is descriptive . . . colour quite like a grizzly bear. Much more yellow/orange than either of PF's cooked liver dishes. Her undercoat is much darker. I like dogs to look like they've been out in the weather.

[Crisovar]

With chocolate/liver Labs, I think far far too much attention goes to the coat colour. I know show people who keep their choco's under shadecloth to avoid sunbleaching. Come on! The Lab should be a working dog. A judge who obviously favoured dark or light yellows would get jumped on. But for some reason, it's considered ok to favour a dark, rich colour. I can see penalizing the pink nose or eye-lining. These are faults in the standard. But going for one shade of an allowed coat colour is wrong.

Yes, there are some sour grapes here. The vet called my very sun-bleached choco 'grizzly' coloured the other day . . . which is descriptive . . . colour quite like a grizzly bear. Much more yellow/orange than either of PF's cooked liver dishes. Her undercoat is much darker. I like dogs to look like they've been out in the weather.

There is nothing wrong with having a preference for a particular shade of colour if all boxes are ticked.

My dark liver/chocolate boy is an excellent working dog and a very sound, typical Lab as well, his colour is the icing on the cake for me.

[sandgrubber]

With chocolate/liver Labs, I think far far too much attention goes to the coat colour. I know show people who keep their choco's under shadecloth to avoid sunbleaching. Come on! The Lab should be a working dog. A judge who obviously favoured dark or light yellows would get jumped on. But for some reason, it's considered ok to favour a dark, rich colour. I can see penalizing the pink nose or eye-lining. These are faults in the standard. But going for one shade of an allowed coat colour is wrong.

Yes, there are some sour grapes here. The vet called my very sun-bleached choco 'grizzly' coloured the other day . . . which is descriptive . . . colour quite like a grizzly bear. Much more yellow/orange than either of PF's cooked liver dishes. Her undercoat is much darker. I like dogs to look like they've been out in the weather.

There is nothing wrong with having a preference for a particular shade of colour if all boxes are ticked.

My dark liver/chocolate boy is an excellent working dog and a very sound, typical Lab as well, his colour is the icing on the cake for me.

Nothing wrong with an OWNER preference. If I like redfox yellows, fine and dandy. But if a judge overlooks chocos cause they are a bit bleached . . . well . . . no need to go into it . . . I don't have a high opinion of the show ring as a way to judge quality. Just one more thing to make me cynical. Chocos do bleach . . . yellows do too . . . but no one cares if a yellow goes lighter. It's sick to have people keeping their dogs out of the sun to avoid a natural process.

Fine if it's icing on the cake for you. It should NOT be icing on the cake in the show ring, cause the icing is very often the deciding feature.

Edited September 27, 2011 by sandgrubber

[Crisovar]

With chocolate/liver Labs, I think far far too much attention goes to the coat colour. I know show people who keep their choco's under shadecloth to avoid sunbleaching. Come on! The Lab should be a working dog. A judge who obviously favoured dark or light yellows would get jumped on. But for some reason, it's considered ok to favour a dark, rich colour. I can see penalizing the pink nose or eye-lining. These are faults in the standard. But going for one shade of an allowed coat colour is wrong.

Yes, there are some sour grapes here. The vet called my very sun-bleached choco 'grizzly' coloured the other day . . . which is descriptive . . . colour quite like a grizzly bear. Much more yellow/orange than either of PF's cooked liver dishes. Her undercoat is much darker. I like dogs to look like they've been out in the weather.

There is nothing wrong with having a preference for a particular shade of colour if all boxes are ticked.

My dark liver/chocolate boy is an excellent working dog and a very sound, typical Lab as well, his colour is the icing on the cake for me.

Nothing wrong with an OWNER preference. If I like redfox yellows, fine and dandy. But if a judge overlooks chocos cause they are a bit bleached . . . well . . . no need to go into it . . . I don't have a high opinion of the show ring as a way to judge quality. Just one more thing to make me cynical. Chocos do bleach . . . yellows do too . . . but no one cares if a yellow goes lighter. It's sick to have people keeping their dogs out of the sun to avoid a natural process.

Fine if it's icing on the cake for you. It should NOT be icing on the cake in the show ring, cause the icing is very often the deciding feature.

Ok.....no icing.

Toss a coin then.