Color? How do we tell?

Standard schnauzer breeders are often asked how we can tell if a puppy is black or pepper & salt at birth.

Although many pepper & salt pups are born a very dark color, they are not born black to gradually lighten as they grow, as is seen in some horses, for example.

I always find the question of how do we know which color is which a bit hard to answer because, well, the black pups are ...black.

And the pepper & salt pups not black, but rather the mix of white and black banded hairs that make up the pepper & salt coat. Even the very dark pepper & salt pup shown nursing next to her black sister in the forth photo has clearly visible lighter color under her tail and lighter undercoat and banded hairs across her sides. Compare her coat to her lighter colored p&s sister above and you can see although there is great variation in color, the basic characteristics of the p&s coat are very different from a black coat.

I hope, even though the lighting from the heat lamp makes pups seem kinda brown, these photos of both colors of two day old pups illustrate that it is not difficult to tell the difference in the two colors right away on standard schnauzer pups :-).