Reply To: About the new "Shapes and Colors" survey

[kathleen morrill]

Michael — While “Shapes & Colors” survey doesn’t cover all color patterns, the “Physical Traits” survey has a question and option close to what Ollie expresses. The “How much white fur does DOG have?” question, option 6 is the right choice for very small amounts of white spotting (like socks or blazes).

Rebecca — Good point! For “Shapes & Colors”, we wanted to keep the coat pattern options in black & white to best generalize the patterns, as there can be a lot of variation in color and pattern combos, but we did miss out on tan points due to this choice.

Sometimes, when we perform genomic studies, we will combine information from multiple survey questions. If we see that a dog has selected black + tan + white in their colors question, and some level of white spotting in the “Physical Traits” survey, then we have a good idea that they are tri-color. It can also be useful to look at these as two separate traits — black & tan coloration and white spotting — because many coat traits can be controlled by multiple genes.