The Agouti locus
Sable sits at the Agouti (A) locus. The sable allele ay is also known as dominant yellow or golden sable. It produces an essentially red/yellow coat, but with the individual hairs tipped in black (eumelanin).
Clear to shaded
How much black tipping shows varies enormously:
- Clear sable — only the ear tips carry black, so the dog reads as a clean gold.
- Shaded sable — much of the body is overlaid with dark, giving a richer, dirtier gold.
Sable comes in every colour
Just like the rest of the coat, a sable is modified by the B and D loci, so the "black" tips are not always black. A chocolate sable has a brown nose and brown hair tips; a blue sable shows a blue nose with diluted tips; a standard shaded sable carries a black nose and black tips. Read the nose and the tip colour to name it.
Sable vs merle
Sable merles can be very hard to tell from plain sables, because the merle mottling can look only slightly different from the sable shading. Check for merle patches at the ears and points and cross‑reference the Merle page.
