Silver Pugs - Are They Get-able?

[~Anne~]

I think the bit about being treated badly is from her blog (there is a link off her site to it). It seems she feels that the AKC hasn't treated her fairly with her breeding program.

[~Anne~]

Anne, sorry but as this is not my pic or indeed my pug I wouldn't like to place it on a public forum

Sure, I understand.

Are you able to describe the difference between the pic you have and the Kendra pugs. I think I have seen it described as full colour and not a fawn with lots of guard hairs, which would be smutty. The Kendra pugs appera to have full colour.

[puglvr]

Yes anne, I just read that.

[puglvr]

I have heard it described like this.

The silver coat has been described as the color of moonlight, while the true fawn Pug's coat is sunlike.

And also like the silver ring/glow of the ring around a full moon.

I also believe that the silvers are not devoid of guard hairs and that some of the smutty dogs are actually silver, it's the base coat that matters. You can have a smutty dog with an apricot base coat and also a beautiful clear coat that has a fawn/apricot base but is probably lacking pigment.

Whereas the silver's base coat is almost white/clear that it actually reflects light back at you,regardless of smut or not. Also the silvers will have excellent pigment down to the slippers and the pencilling and probably stockings, and will have the jet black toenails. I would even say that if the very early breeders (i'm talking around the formation of the standard) would look at these pugs and say they were of Willoughby lines.

[RuralPug]

I have once in my life seen a silver - it is totally unmistakeable for anything else. In certain lighting it can look like a very pale fawn but when you see them galloping in the sunshine you knew exactly what SGW said when she said the "colour of moonlight" as the coat is highly reflective and without the faintest trace of apricot that most fawns (even the creamy blondes) have.

At one time the allele for this colour was suggested to be from the chinchilla gene on the C locus ( I am not sure if that is still held to be the case today.) The chinchilla gene was described as ensuring the granules of yellow or red pigment are much smaller and sparser. It has no effect on black pigment and therefore the mask, trace etc remain strong and clearly defined. If this theory were correct, then you could just as easily have a smutty silver as a smutty apricot or smutty fawn. The one that I did see, in the 1970's, was not smutty in the least (although not a particularly typey specimen.)

In my view we have lost the genes for silver in this country. Whether or not it still exists overseas on specimens of reasonable health, type and soundness I do not know.

I am aware that more than one breeder in this country has registered puppies as "silver" when they were simply very smutty fawns, which is a shame and no doubt has added to the confusion.

I am not a fan of the designer shenanigans of the Pugs of Colour website however I won't climb on that particular soapbox.