Wednesday 29 May 2019

The Sable Dog Is 2 Tomorrow

Recently I've had quite a few people who have been surprised to see how dark Ross is now. I think some people, like Steve expected a sable to be a pale colour, but the banding of color on each and every individual hair leads to a variety of shades and colors which can vary extremely from sable to sable. Sable German Shepherds are best known for those characteristic multi-colored individual hairs, though they may be masked by dark or black guard hairs too. The standard color sables are from silver to gray and various shades of tan hairs tipped with black. . Sable, the original breed colour is the genetically dominating pattern in the entire German Shepherd Dog breed.
Ross has a tan undercoat, and as with all sables he will continue to darken throughout his life. In colour as least he is turning out to be exactly what I want .. give or take a darker mask. I'm always partial to a darker mask, but would that ruin his unique, naughty but endearing and cheeky expression? His facial expressions can not hide his true mischievous but loving character.
Ross' show career isn't quite as I hoped it would be, but we have time on our hands. I know some judges don't like sables but colour should be of secondary importance. Of course we found with Asha that colour sadly did go against her .. I guess it happens but I think poor Ross has often missed out to the face at the end of the lead. That is certainly how I've felt in recent Ch. shows anyway. I hope I look at classes honestly and constructively and that I don't wear rose tinted glasses, but I have to admit he is kind of special to me.
Two tomorrow eh .. the puppy made me laugh and cry in equal measures, the young dog makes me smile and ooze with pride. Ross, my Ross ... a character beyond characters.