[furnace widow]

I have a 1yr old male mini doxen that has white hair on his chest,belly and paws. HE also has a liver colored nose and claws, not the typical blacks ones. He is registered. I've heard the white hair could indicate health problems? Any comments ?

[labman]

If he has always been that way, I doubt it is anything to worry about. I know some purebred Labs have white markings. Other than disqualifying them as show dogs, it is no problem. If it is something that developed since the last vet visit, I would check with him.

[amyklane]

You have what is called a double dapple mini daschund. You can get dapple daschund's and double daschund's. The white hair on your dog is why they are called double dapple's. The way they get this colouring is by breeding 2 dapple daschund's together which produces the double dapple. This is a bit of a no, no because when their gene's mix it can form mutations such as blindness and deafness in puppies, and the percentage rate of this happening when breeding 2 dapples is very high. If your dog has no problems now at the age of 1yr old then I really don't see why he/she would get anything out of the ordinary happening now. Dapple daschund's are the doxie's that are a solid colour all over with patches of either silver, brown, red etc all over them. I have a silver dapple doxie. They are just beautiful colourings. But as a responsible owner I would never breed her with another dapple, just regular colours. It would be heatbreaking to have 50% or more of the puppies born to have deformities. Hope this helps.

[Blackcat]

I agree completely with amyklane! Which means you probably have some type of dapple! But if you have not noticed any health problems yet it is safe to say he is OK. But as I always say better safe than sorry, if you do notice a problem take him to the vet!

Brittany

[nontyp]

Are you sure she doesn't have a Piebald?
Better ask an expert