Premature ageing in dogs

There is an early greying gene. It's just a color gene and doesn't affect them negatively in any way. It can be bred out of a line. It's classed as a type of progressive dilution, it's dominant, and located on the G locus. G = greying, g = normal.

FCRs in general seem to lack this gene. I've seen some dogs that are getting a touch white around the whiskers at 7-8 but even that isn't too common. Many never show grey at all. Which is interesting to me especially given the close relationship between Goldens and FCRs, and how many Goldens are completely white-faced by 9-10 years old.

This is Mira's great-grandmother at 14. Not a grey hair that I can see, though she has what was likely a nick on her left cheek that came back in white (which on the other hand is pretty common in FCRs...Mira has a fair number of white hairs on her face from blasting through brush with no sense of self-preservation).

Not my photo -- taken by her grandmother's breeder.

Yep it's in papillons. A lot of papillons go grey or silver pretty young.

My dads JRT has a bit of grey around her mouth, but not really noticeable unless you're up close. She's almost 6.

Jackson will be 5 this year and has none. He looks basically exactly the same as he did at 1. lol. His coloring has changed a lot though, being a Yorkie and all. But sometimes his body color still changes a bit after each groom. He definitely lightens up in the summer, and then sometimes when he's shaved down, his back is really dark. Crazy.

When I let it grow out a bit, it's very silver.


When it gets shaved, it can either look like this

or be pretty dark: