Eye dots. Some people use the term to refer to “floaters,” the remnants of collagen fibers, hyaluronate molecules, and water found in their eye’s vitreous gel. In dogs, however, eye dots refer to markings, and two breeds in particular.
To be clear, several breeds refer to markings above the eyes, and a few of those breeds appear below:
The Doberman Pinscher’s AKC breed standard reads, “Markings-Rust, sharply defined, appearing above each eye…”
From the Bernese Mountain Dog standard: “Rust appears over each eye,” and from the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog standard: “On the head, rust typically appears over each eye.”
The Miniature Pinscher also mentions this: “Defined rust-red markings on cheeks, lips, lower jaw, throat [and] twin spots above eyes…”
“The tan markings are placed above the eyes,” appears in the standard of the Entlebucher Mountain Dog, and in the Black and Tan Coonhound standard, the following shows up: “...the color is coal black with rich tan markings above eyes.”
All that said, we point out a couple of breed standards that describe the same thing, but a bit differently. In a Black and Tan Beauceron, the breed standard writes that markings above the eyes are referred to as “dots above the eyes,” and in the Toy Fox Terrier, similar marks are called “eye dots.” One would be hard pressed to find two more dissimilar breeds to each other, and yet what the Beauceron and TFT have in common is that out of all the AKC breed standards, they are the only two that use the word, “dots” in any syntax (and no, not even the Dalmatian uses the word).
Show us the dots above your dog’s eyes!
Top Image shared by Victoria Paul
Toy Fox Terrier photograph from Deposit Stock Photos
This is Zara, my Eastern Shepherd. Real eyebrows!
Oh goodness, Dana, those eyes are amazing! Thank you for sharing Zara’s photo, s/he’s very special!
A basenji breeder I used to work for called eye dots “pips”. I have used this term ever since. By the way, I have also seen some tri-colored mixes that have only one pip. Brings a smile to my face everytime.
“Pips” is the term with which we were familiar, Hindy, so when we came across “dots,” we were tickled to learn something new (and the learning never ends, chuckle). Thanks for writing!!