Bear in mind that Sable - a(y) - is very variable as to amount of black shading. A clear fawn Malinois with little or no black overlay is a(y), and so are the very dark ones. There is also a lot of variation in Rough Collie sables.

I have seen a BC x Husky that was merled, and that would have been a(w) (wolf sable). not aware this is present in BCs but must be very rare if it is, and the merled husky cross was quite different to your pic.

I was thinking of your two lovelies Wyrd when I started reading this thread.... I love Darcy's 'overmarked' colouring xx xx

I prefer 'traditional' colouring I think...... am not keen on Merles in Rough's or BC's. Neither is my husband.

In the Sable Rough' I much prefer the darker ones to the very pale ones. I love a Tri' coloured dog (obviously! ) and am drawn to longer coated dogs if I'm honest. On *every* walk we go with Whisper she gets complimented. In fact; there's fast a small 'Whisper Fan Club' forming in our home town!! I am alway pleasantly surprised when people get Whisper's breed right and don't think she's a BC. I didn't even know Tri Rough's existed until we first saw our girly on a rescue site....

As someone else commented; I don't like the very pale Lab's or Retrievers.

I do love the red BCs and the Sable ones - but there is a big part of me that still thinks you can't beat a nice solid black and white BC!

I seem to favour black animals anyway lol. I have three Black rats, a black rabbit and a mostly-black dog lol.

Yup that was one of the darker sable fotos - more traditional in a BC


The other two dogs the first was a saddle patterned merle and the 2nd wasnt merle - was heavy ticked saddle backed - so looks like a GSD - funny what the colours can do

Nice to see the Mismarked Dals have some admirers , some people in the breed seem to be very 'purist' about the breed standard and markings.

My girl Becka was a shaded sable I think?

[QUOTE=Munsti-Sue;2606181] No, it is a purebred GSP.

yup looks sable - and lovely

I forgot to say I love the patchy dallies

Re other breeds:
I've a soft spot for wolf grey Estrela's preferably dark, with or without brindling, also like the short coats in general. As well as the blues.

I'm another who prefers dark sable, solid black and bicolour GSD's, quite like the blues too. Not so keen on liver and white just doesn't do it for me, though that's more white dogs in general. Really dont care for the panda shepherds, not my thing at all now.

Prefer the red golden retrievers, that goes for yellow labs as well, much prefer the fox red ones to the lighter shades.

Like the tricoloured Beauceron's and red and white BC's tricoloured and blue merl smooths., actually they go for BC's too.

And molecular examination of colour genetics - a relatively new thing - is throwing up some big surprises. The colour form that was previously called "saddle tan" and "saddle backed" i.e. a tan dog with a black saddle, by earlier geneticists, has now been discovered to be the Black & Tan (like Dobes, Rotts etc) - same gene, but with what is thought to be some kind of as un-yet identified modifier which shrinks the black to a saddle.

The main difference is that "saddle backed" have solid black hairs on the saddle - whereas dark sables have some kind of banding or lighter roots to the coat on the black areas.

yup - I always thought looking at the BC that the saddle is just a pattern - a smaller coverage than the irish pattern - and imo those dogs would have been tricoloured
My friends dog (who I dont have great fotos of) is like the opposite - the black pattern is really extensive so he is nearly black - but yup its all the same thing just the extent of the pattern

and yup sable is darker tips

Others see my boys as miss marked, Not i ...lol