Kyrie's Colors, Part One!

Kyrie's color pattern is very rare and it is one of the many things that make her special to me. :) It is also the reason I begged so hard for her back when her picture first went up on our breeder's Available Puppies page!!

Her basic color is called "brown sable with cream" the cream being the cream/white bib on the front of her neck under her muzzle. She is a sable because she has a paler undercoat with hairs that turn darker on her outer coat. Her back is almost black turning to a lighter color on her mane, with legs being a warm golden brown. Her ears are a more intense version of her leg color. Here are some pics from when she was between four and five months old!





But the most rare part of Kyrie's coloring is actually considered a show fault among Shiloh Shepherds at the moment (we are hoping that will change)--her muzzle, which is called "faded" because it is other than black. It is lightening up a bit at a time and we hope that eventually it will go to pure white. But why?

Waaaaaay back in Shiloh Shepherd history was the first breed outcross that Tina did--the MAW outcross, called that for Malamute, American Show Dog, and White Shepherd. The American Show Dog part of that was a line of German Shepherds with a very special heritage--they came from a kennel which had, once upon a time, produced dogs that looked like this:



So what's the story behind these dogs? Stay tuned!