Blonde

$3,000 - $3,400

Blonde in dogs is the same as blonde in people! It's a recessive gene that requires two copies to express. There are other modifiers that can change the intensity of a blonde dog (in genetics it's referred to as yellow) as pale as completely white (think Samoyed) or as rich as a red Irish Setter and all the shades between. Fun fact: In Poodles the middle tone of blonde is referred to as apricot. Think of blonde as a having a "colour blanket". This blanket masks the true "underneath" colour of the dog. So, genetically the dog could be a solid black dog, but it appears as some shade of blonde. Pro tip: you can get an idea of the "base colour" - black or chocolate (or dilute... but that's more than you need to think about, really) if you look at the pigment of the nose, the eye rims and the paw pads. So, for example Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers are all brown-nosed, blonde dogs. That blonde is more red in this breed. "Under" that blonde, the dog is a chocolate brown colour. Yes, there are black-nosed NSDTRs but they are not super common. That black nose indicates the dog is genetically black and not brown. There are other phenomena that cause de-pigmentation in the nose that can lead to a black nose looking more chocolate (or pink-ish, really) called a "snow nose", but I won't dive into that here. 

Blonde dogs are not something we particularly aim to produce at Moonstruck, however, the gene for it does exist in our program as it is a very common gene in Poodles. If we choose to breed two carriers together it results in a 25% chance of blonde puppies. Blonde will mask all other colours the dog could be - sable, merle, chocolate, etc - except any kind of white. There's nothing wrong with a blonde dog, of course! It's just another nifty colour!