The first picture is my soon to be puppy "Luna". The second picture is her littermate "Titan". Titan and all the rest of the puppies from this litter all have thicker, fluffier fur whereas my Luna seems to not be as fluffy. When I asked the breeder about it, she simply said that she has a little different texture of fur. I am not looking to show her by any means so I could care less if her fur felt a little different. But, my question is... is she ok? Is it possible that she isn't getting her thicker winter fur like the rest of her littermates? And is this normal looking for a 4 week old Husky?

Sheesh, you're asking about a breed where a dog can have anything from a very thin coat (such as a shepherd or a lab) all the way to a wooley and still fall within breed standard (more or less).

The fact that she doesn't have as heavy a coat as the others may simply be because she has a thinner coat ... and that's as normal as anything about these dogs is. As far as your question "Is she ok?" goes, I'd ignore her coat and look at her general health, all else being equal - her coat, especially at this time in her life, would be the least of my concerns.

Al says it best - I love her bar mask!

I don't think puppies this young have winter or summer coats yet. Just puppy fur.

I knew I was reaching, asking if her coat was normal. I guess my main concern is just, is she ok?. She is 100% healthy in all aspects. I guess it just threw me off that all of her littermates have a different coat. I thought that the different coats were all just from different pedigrees entirely. I wasn't aware that it could be different from a pup born in the same litter. Thank you for your response Mr. Jones.

Amy, so she isn't lacking in her winter coat? lol I think that was what I was worried about. She must just have thinner puppy fur than her brothers.

I would just like to say that this is my first day EVER being on "It's a Husky Thing" forum. It is so unbelievably nice to be able to come here to read about and discuss the breed with people who actually know Huskies and live with them daily. It is a breath of fresh air to be able to trust the answers and opinions that come from you guys. I LOVE IT HERE! I hope that I can continue to be a part of this forum while raising my new addition.

Katie, My girl Miya is entirely different than her siblings. She too has a shorter coat, yes yours is puppy fur as Al and Amy said, she is smaller too. My girl was the runt and is now the largest, the others have a dark, almost black coat, she has a light coat, the others have a more husky longer, thicker coat where as Miya has a dense thick short coat. so indeed even amongst a litter with the same 2 parents puppies will look different. I love this aspect of the husky, no 2 are quite the same, some will look similar, but never exact.......Cute pup, and welcome to the forum!!

I thought about what you said about pedigree. Your pup might have say the paternal grandma's coat style sleek maybe staying a flat smooth coat. The other pups might have maternal grandpa's coat style fluffy almost a bit more downy. However, they have the same pedigree kind of like one sibling might get a recessive gene and another one does not. Not say this is what happened just a maybe.

Or it might be the coat on yours is slower to fluff up compared to siblings everything about a puppy seems to "grow" at a slightly different rate. I would not worry. Still young and gorgeous!

I think that is exactly what happened! I JUST asked the breeder about this and she sent me pictures of both the maternal and paternal grandparents. My mind is now at ease. Thanks!

Ahh its nice to have your mind at ease, glad she was able to send the pictures too

Yes I was glad she could send the pictures to help me understand! I knew I chose a good breeder.
I don't quite understand why you would say she could have the maternal grandmas trait and the other could have the maternal grandpas trait. Can't they get the Genes or traits of the father as well? Or were you just giving an example. I could have sworn I read somewhere that they only or mainly got genes from the father. Like blue eyes... I read that even if the mother and maternal grandma have blue eyes that the pup could not get blue eyes unless the father or paternal grandpa had blue eyes. Lol I don't know, maybe it wasn't a good source.

Oh that was just an example I am not real sure who the coat gene comes from. I am sorry.

Katie Mesner wrote:

Yes I was glad she could send the pictures to help me understand! I knew I chose a good breeder.
I don't quite understand why you would say she could have the maternal grandmas trait and the other could have the maternal grandpas trait. Can't they get the Genes or traits of the father as well? Or were you just giving an example. I could have sworn I read somewhere that they only or mainly got genes from the father. Like blue eyes... I read that even if the mother and maternal grandma have blue eyes that the pup could not get blue eyes unless the father or paternal grandpa had blue eyes. Lol I don't know, maybe it wasn't a good source.

They get equal genes from both parents. The reason blue eyes would not be expressed if mom had blue and dad had brown is that blue eye color is recessive. As such, the dog needs 2 copies of blue gene. However, it is still possible for 2 brown eyed parents to still produce a blue eyed pup if both parents carry 1 brown chromosome and one blue chromosome. Shorthand for this combination would be Bb. So you have 4 combos possible - bb (blue), Bb(brown), bB (brown), BB (brown). It is more complicated in dogs, however as you can have a mosaic, or by-eyed and parti-eyed. This is my rudimentary understanding of Mendelian genetics Hope I got it right!

Wow. I understand now. Thanks, sounds like you did a great job. Lol I see that it's just a guessing game for the most part unless they are specifically breeding for blue eyes. Which as I've noticed, most breeders do not. Are there a lot of breeds that produce bi-eyes? I don't think I've seen it in other breeds.

There are other breeds where bi-eyes show up, but it is rare. I can't name any specifically off the top of my head but I know they do crop up now and then. Genetically they're considered a "fault," which only means that it's a genetic anomaly outside the "norm." Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the dog health-wise, though.

To answer your question about other breeds with bi-eyes, I have seen more than one Australian shepherd with bi-eyes along with one Blue Heeler. My cousin has an Aussie with one blue and and one brown. Those are just 2 examples I have seen personally.

Yahoo answers says that bi-eyes can appear in breeds with merle coats such as

Quote :

Dachshunds, Chihuahua, Australian Shepherd, Beauceron, Catahoula Leopard Dog, Border Collie, Great Dane, Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Pomeranian, and Old English Sheepdogs, among others

You might also want to check the wikipedia entry.

More than I really wanted to know ....

Katie Mesner wrote:

Wow. I understand now. Thanks, sounds like you did a great job. Lol I see that it's just a guessing game for the most part unless they are specifically breeding for blue eyes. Which as I've noticed, most breeders do not. Are there a lot of breeds that produce bi-eyes? I don't think I've seen it in other breeds.

A lot of people consider when Husky breeders who advertise based on eye color to be a red flag to stay away from, because, eye color in the breed is non-essential--or in other words, the standard does not say what colors the eyes should be as it does with other features of the body.   The same with coat color.  

With Link's breeder, we were told that we were allowed to state preferences for eye color that would help with the sorting once the puppies were born, but if we stated we MUST have blue eyes or bi-eyes or brown eyes....with our puppy, then she would then refuse to put us in line for a puppy and turn us away because we would be prioritizing something that A) she could not guarantee and B) is a superficial aspect of a Husky that is favored over much more important, critical things that the standard specifically calls for.  

Very often a breeder will advertise blue eyes and try their darndest to produce blue eyes because then the commodity price of the puppies goes up and they can sell those puppies like fresh hot cakes.

That is basically what my breeder told me, and I fully understand. That her priority was to better the breed and breed for temperament, not eye color. I could see people wanting blue eyes in a Sibe because its "cool", and people would be more attracted to him/her. That person would be wanting a Husky for all the wrong reasons. It would raise a red flag to her as a breeder for someone who had maybe not done a lot of research in the breed. They want a dog with ice blue eyes, bring him home, and all this dog does is dig, chew, and try to escape thus landing him in a shelter.

Haha, yep.

There'd be a lot less Huskies abandoned to shelters if they weren't so beautiful and purchased solely for that reason. Undeniable.

I just watched a documentary on Netflix called "Happy People- A year in the Taiga" One of the hunters was talking about his dogs (some mix of Northern breeds, looked to be mainly Husky) He said "If I have a dog that doesn't fit me, and we don't get along good, or he doesn't listen I just get a different dog. You will find that the more different dogs you choose the better your chance of finding a perfect fit". LOL However, he kept ALL of the dogs, they just stayed home with the women and children while he took the good hunter with him. Too bad these Americans don't think the same way. This Russian man said "If I have a dog, I feed him until the day he dies." (GREAT DOCUMENTARY)

Amy,
Well done on that example of Mendelian genetics!

Genetics are fun....I took a genetic engineering course in post-secondary, one of my favourite courses!

Complete Heterochromia (Bi-eyed) is generally genetic. It can affect any breed (or human! or horse or cat or...many things), but it is more common in certain breeds, huskies being one of them. Sectoral Heterochromia (just part of the eye being a different colour) can also be genetic, but can also be acquired due to injury to the eye or illness.

Long story short, both complete and sectoral can be genetic OR acquired. Never a guarantee and usually nothing is wrong with the dog (unless the Heterochromia is due to an illness/injury)

Isn't physiology and genetics fun??

But isn't the difference that in humans it would be heterochromia because homochromia, as it were, is default-normal, but in a Husky, homochromia is not default-normal, so therefore we call it bi-eyed, not heterochromia, when a Husky has two different eyes?

In terms of eye color for a Husky, bi-eyed is not a genetic abnormality, whereas in a human, heterochromia is a genetic abnormality.

Yes? No?

There was a guy named Randy from Wyoming on here over a year ago and he was a breed historian of sorts, super smart guy--I miss having him here, and I'm pretty sure it was he who said that in the Husky eye color of each eye is determined genetically independent from one another unlike the case in most animals, rendering bi-eyed genetically normal, or not an abnormality.   So, not the same as heterochromia.

I wish I could find that thread.

The difference of eye colour is called heterochromia, no matter what the cause. So the scientific name of two different colours in the eyes is heterochromia, whether caused by a genetic abnormality or not, so I don't think it makes a difference whether it is in humans, dogs, cats, horses, water buffalo...