:)We have a blue and tan male daschund... one of his parents was red and one was black... does anybody know what color female daschund we would need to breed him with to have another blue dog... would it have to be another blue? I know the color is rare...

No set answer.
You get what you get when you breed like that.
A old neighbor of mine bred a Daschund and a Poodle and ended up with a Cocker Spaniel.:D

I would leave it to the experts:)

If you don't know the answer to your question then you shouldn't be breeding. That's not an opinion, that's a fact.

Breeding requires more then just getting two dogs together and hoping for puppies.

Are you prepared to pay the medical expenses? You'll need genetic testing done on both the male and female. You'll need a male and female who's lines can be traced back at least 5 generations. There's more, and it will cost thousands of dollars.

Why do you think that breeders charge so much for their pups? They usually don't even break even because the cost of tests, the best medical care etc, eats up all the profit.

They do it for the love of the breed and to continue the bloodlines of the best of the breed.

If you're breeding without that knowledge then you're a backyard breeder, and they're the worst of the worst, the reason why the shelters are full and millions of dogs are killed every year.

Those are the facts.

Why not just enjoy your pet, love him for who he is, not what he can give you.

Working out colors is very hard, there are dominant and recessive color genes.

Blue is actually a dilution of the color black, if there is a dominant black gene in the pedigree it will be passed on so the puppies will all be black with the possibility of carrying another color.
The dilution of the black is where it starts getting confusing

Quote:

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A5 produces black without any tan on the dog. White markings are due to a different gene, and there are other genes that can modify the black to liver (chocolate Lab) or blue dilute (blue Great Dane.) If A5 is present, in most cases the dog will be able to produce only eumelanin pigment (but see the E series). Note that the agouti series is known in a number of mammals, and dominant black is almost always found in a different series, so there is a strong possibility that dominant black is not really in the agouti series.

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It's all in the genes baby...

Best to leave it to the expert breeders when you are after a specific color as most have actually sudied dog genetics.

If you are interested in learning about genetics as well as basic breeding practices I highly suggest you order and read this book:

Amazon.com: How to Breed Dogs, (9780876054116): Leon F. Whitney: Books