Coat Color and Pattern in English Shepherds

Seal and White
Seal is an interesting color... it seems to occur in dogs that inherit one gene for dominant black (K) and genes which would cause the shaded sable pattern (regulated at the Agouti gene locus). Ordinarily, you would expect these dogs to be black... however, in some cases, it seems that the black pigment, though evenly distributed throughout the coat, is less dense. That being the case, the "underlying" agouti pattern is hinted at... and, in the case of shaded sable, that results in a deep golden brown/black appearance to the coat.

Seal can be differentiated from recessive "red"/ chocolate/ liver (bb genotype) dog by the color of their leather -- the nose, foot pads, and eye rims in a "seal" color dog will be black; in a "bb" genotype dog, these areas will be brown.

The white markings, again, are the result of recessive alleles at the white spotting (S) locus. Dogs that inherit two genes for white spotting will display white markings; their distribution and extent depend on both which alleles they inherit (Irish, piebald, or extreme) and whether any other modifiers are present.

Wingler's Dillon