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ShockTherapyStables — Tutorial - Brindle in Dogs
Published: 2013-05-19 18:54:39 +0000 UTC; Views: 33106; Favourites: 1056; Downloads: 181
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Description
Another tutorial, this time covering brindle - both the genetics and tips for actually rendering it. We hope it is helpful, and if you have any feedback or questions you are more than welcome to comment and we will do our best to clarify anything!Other STS Tutorials: Dilution
Art and Characters © *ShockTherapyStables
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Comments: 110
Wow that was amazing! I love it. Esp how you explained that stripes aren't triangles!!!! THANK YOUUUUU.......
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Wow, you are incredible with all dog art, I am completely in awe at your amazing canine knowledge. You've actually quite literally cut it down to a understandable slice of science and execute your objectives clearly and without hassle. Keep up the amazing work!
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Thanks very much!
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My bouvier des flandres is brindle but it's really hard to see it in her, unless she's shaved xD
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It can be incredibly difficult to see on long-haired dogs, as the actual brindle stripes are often so thin that the long hair obscures them. x) Bouvier's also tend to be very dark in color, I'm sure that doesn't help. Sounds like a gorgeous dog though.
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yeah in the litter we got her from, she was the only brindle and the rest were black. [link]
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Great tutorial and very easy to understand.
We just brought home a beautiful brindle and white pug x chihuahua today and it was interesting to learn some of the genetics behind that pretty color.
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Sounds like a cute pup! Thank you
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Also the brindle merle info is incorrect. Brindle only overlays red areas, while merle only affects black areas. So they can't be in the same place, but you could have a black-and-tan dog that the main body is merle and the points are brindles.
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Merle affects black pigment (eumelanin), which brindle is composed of. If a dog displays both brindle and merle at the same time, there will be merling present in the stripes of the brindle. This goes for any black markings on a dog, including masks, sable, grizzle, saddles, points, etc - merle will affect all of them if the gene is present.
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It does affect black pigment, but it also only affects black areas. That is to say, if you have a merle black-and-tan dog, the merle will only be in the main body of the dog (not the red points). Brindle is the opposite. Brindle only affects red areas. MOST brindles are some kind of sable, so the whole body gets brindle stripes. However, if you have a black-and-tan brindle, as you have shown in the pictures above, the brindle strips are only on the tan points. Brindle and Merle cannot be in the same area, because they affect different areas.
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The dog illustrated in the tutorial is not a black-and-tan brindle, it is a sable with brindle. If a dog has sable and brindle as well as merle, you'll be able to see the merle in the stripes as it tends to give a soft "broken" look to the stripes.
[link] This dog for example is a sable brindle merle. You can see the "broken" pattern in the brindle stripes where the merle is affecting it.
[link] Different dog, but also a sable brindle merle. You can see the faint merling visible on the sable, as well as the "broken" stripes.
You can also see examples of this in "brindlequin" Great Danes (dogs with both brindle, merle, and harlequin). [link]
Brindle does not just affect red, it is only visible on red. If a dog has tan points and brindle, the brindle is not restricted only to the tan points, it is just only visible on the tan points because obviously you can not see black stripes on a black base. Brindle is by definition a black marking and is affected by all the modifiers that other black markings have, including blue dilution, liver, progressive greying, and merle. It's the same reason you can see dogs with merle saddles [link] or merle masks [link] - if the marking is black, it will be affected by merle.
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Yes, brindle is affected by anything which modifies eumelanin, including dilution. Merle has nothing to do with that. Merle is a pattern which occurs in black regions. Brindle is a pattern which occurs in red regions (UNDER or obscured by the black regions). You can have a dog with both, but not in the same area.
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We just showed you visual proof of brindle and merle happening in the same area. I'm not sure how you can continue to insist that it's not possible when it's right there.
Perhaps if you could show us images of a dog with merle in one area and brindle in another, we could end this argument once and for all. But so far, the only proof we have here is your word and insistence that we are wrong, when reality seems to say otherwise.
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Where did you show "visual proof?"
There is no need to get nasty just because an error was pointed out.
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Sorry if the comment sounded rude, didn't mean for it to come off that way.
In a previous reply I linked you to several dogs that showed merle in their brindle stripes. Here's those and a few more examples of the same: [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]
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Okay, I looked at those two catahoula curs before (which you re linked just now) and I didn't think that they are merle. I thought the photos were linked as part of the sable tangent, didn't realize those two are supposedly merle; I still don't see it. Catahoula leopard dogs are a special case anyway when it comes to merle, since they're one of (the only?) breeds in which double merle isn't lethal. It's really fascinating and I wish someone would do a genetic study of them to figure out why. Do they have another modifier gene, or is their merle caused by something else entirely? Hmmm...
First picture is a harlequin not a merle, and I've seems lots of brindle harly Danes. Pretty dog! I have actually wondered why Great Danes and Cardigane Welsh Corgis, both of which come in merle and brindle frequently, don't have more examples of brindle+merle. A little while ago I searched for exactly that, and the ONLY thing I could find after hours of searching was a black-and-tan corgi as I described before (merle on the body, brindle on the points) and lots of brindle harly danes.
The other two pictures -- wow! Okay, I can't call it anything else than what you have stated. The red one was kind of questionable, until I saw the distinctive chevron pattern on its muzzle. The dark one is mentioned as being a catahoula mix, so again I wonder if they have something special in their merle genotype...?
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Here's my brindle male to show you his black-and-white cheeks 
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I have to point out one tiny error. You can and will see dogs that have black-and-white stripes because not ALL types of white overlay red and black. Urajrio (ghosting at the extremities) only dilutes the red pigment from the fur. Thus, a dog with brindle stripes on its face and urajiro will have black and white striped cheeks/muzzle. The rest of its body will be red and black striped. The picture you marked as not possible is very possible and is how every brindle Japanese Akita looks
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We addressed the Brindle + Urajiro in a comment, the white discussed in this tutorial is S spotting (Irish, piebald, etc)
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My fiance and I have a little mutt girl who's all white and reverse brindle (as far as we know, she's a border collie/basset hound mix, with probably a lot more stuff mixed in). As such, I have a real fondness for brindle coats and was always interested in how it worked. Thank you so much for these tutorials. I don't really design my own dogs or anything, but these are so informative.
P.S. Isis is one gorgeous girl! What breed is she?
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Sounds like a cute pup! Thanks for your feedback.
Isis is a fictional sighthound breed we created for our RPG called the Rek Mesneh
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Ah I'll edit that, thanks for catching it
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Woah this is so so so helpfull, really, thank you so so much! gonna get practice on this since it is always a pain in the *** so i normally avoid drawig it heh
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I seriously love these tutorials!
I do have a question, though. My family (irl) has a Boston Terrier, and when he was younger and used to spend a lot of time outside in the sun we were pretty sure we could see some reddish brindle stripes. Then, later on, he bred with a red beagle (my father thought that she had another year or so before her first heat and was in no rush to get her fixed -_-) and they have a brindle puppy. So, basically, my question is can Kkbr dogs sometimes show brindle, either by sun bleaching their fur or maybe kind of like black jaguars where all of their fur is black, but in the right lighting you can see their spots?
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Your dog sounds like he was a very dark Reverse Brindle! Boston Terriers can often come in brindle, and depending on the intensity they can have clear defined stripes or have such thick striping that they appear almost solid black [link] [link] [link] . The fact that your dog had a brindle pup definitely suggests that he was just a very heavily-marked kbrkbr dog.
(Interestingly, solid black in big cats and solid black in dogs are two completely different genes! Solid black in leopards/jaguars is called an Incomplete Dominant, because if a jaguar has one copy of the gene they will be a more transparent black [link] while if they have two copies they are the deep, solid color [link] . In dogs, whether they are KK or Kkbr/k, they will look the same.)
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Another awsome tutorial 
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No problem :3
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I heard of something calles broken brindle? When brindle goes a little over white... Does it really exists?
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The only dogs I'm aware of that show brindle over white are dogs that have "Urajiro white," such as Akita and Shiba Inus. Urajiro causes the spread of red pigment in the coat to be heavier on the back and lighter on the legs, chest, and face, giving the appearance of light undersides [link] . Because Urajiro only affects the red pigment, brindle can overlay without being affected. These are examples of Akita Inus with both Urajiro and brindle [link] [link] [link] You can clearly see how the even though the red gets lighter on the legs and face, the brindle is not affected. Interestingly, you can also see that some of these dogs have Irish white spotting on the legs and chest, which the brindle does not cover.
That's the only situation I'm aware of where brindle will overlap white, because in this case the "white" is actually a shade of red. I hope that helped.
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Thank you very much for explaining! I was thinking about the Urajiro marking so I guess I was right x3
Thank you again, can't wait to see more tutos of this, I love them.
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What she said.
And also platinum. Platinum is the shade of red after cream; it tend to appear white, but is not a true white.
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ohhh ok!!! sometimes i make the mistake of making the stripes go horizontal accross the legs xD thank you so much for your tutorials, theyre fun, creative and informative! 
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I personally love playing around with the directions of stripes, we have made dogs with totally horizontal stripes before and it was very fun! Thanks
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oh ok!
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And again a wonderful and really interesting tutorial drawn by you people! <3 I really adore those tutorials and it would be cool if you would do more of them - like a serie. I did not really understand everything but I need some more knowledge of the whole thing too so it's not your fault. You explained it very well! Now I understand how this gene works on my boxer dog <3
I'm not sure if my character has the right brindlepattern though but... that does not matter now.
You guys are awesome and made a wonderful tutorial! *w* I really like the way you explain such things... And so many interesting pictures drawn awesomely good <33 Thank you so much for sharing and for giving us some infos <3 The more tutorials you make the more I understand your characterinformations. xD
Keep up the awesome work <3
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Thank you very much! We definitely plan on making many more of these, I'm glad you found it helpful
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*u* i love your tutorials they are fabulous
if you do another one i'd really love one on spotting/ticking - i've never seen one properly explain that!
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