Some information about Great Dane Colors

Colors and Patterns in the Great Dane

Acceptable Colors

The acceptable colors in the Great Dane, according to the American Kennel Club standard, are:

- Fawn, which is clear sable (Ay) with a mask
- Black
- Blue, which is dilute black (dd)
- Brindle, with a mask
- Harlequin, which is modified merle
- Harlequin mantle, which is as above but with irish spotting
- Mantle, which is black with irish spotting (sisi)

That means that Great Danes carry the following genes:
- A locus: Ay (sable)
- B locus: B (non-liver)
- C locus: ? Probably just C (normal expression of phaeomelanin)
- D locus: D (non-dilute), d (dilute)
- E locus: Em (mask)
- G locus: g (no greying)
- H locus: H (harlequin), h (non-harlequin)
- K locus: K (dominant black), kbr (brindle), k (allows expression of A locus)
- M locus: M (merle), m (non-merle)
- S locus: S (no white spotting), si (irish spotting)
- T locus: t (no ticking)

We don't need to take into account some of these locii when looking at Great Dane breeding, simply because there's only one gene they carry on that locus, so all Danes will be homozygous for it. For example, all Danes are sable (AyAy), it's just some cannot express it. The locii in bold type above are the ones we do need to consider.

Other Colours

The Great Dane is unique in that a huge proportion of the possible colours it can occur in are not actually acceptable in the show ring. All of the following colours can be bred from crossing acceptable colours. In order to avoid breeding too many puppies which are unshowable, breeders tend to breed only certain colours together, for example breeding a black with a mantle is generally a "safe" breeding, although it can result in incorrect white markings.

These are all of the other colours that can occur in the Great Dane, along with their genotypes. I have only included colours which can be bred from the accepted ones above. A dash (-) in the genotype means that it doesn't matter what that gene is.