One of NPDD’s calling cards is a healthy deference to “genetic geeks” (you know who you are). These are the folks who love making Punnett squares and figuring out probabilities. We’re not among them, and thusly always welcome input on the subject as we wade into what we call the “tall grass” of genetics. We might crash and burn, but with that said……

To our knowledge, only four AKC-allowed colors in dogs are named for fruit. One is “lemon,” in which the Beagle, English Cocker Spaniel, Basset Hound, English Setter, and Pointer come. The other is orange, and this is a color seen in the English Cocker Spaniel, Brittany and English Setter. The Rat Terrier comes in lemon and white and orange and white, but a third color is “apricot,” and the breeds coming in this color are the Mastiff, Poodle and Chinese Shar-Pei. For the moment, we’re focusing on apricot, and if we’re being nit-picky, apricot in the Chinese Shar-Pei is technically an apricot dilute. What “dilute” means is that the dog must have the dilution gene (the genotype “dd”) which is recessive. How we tell that that a dog is a dilute is that the dog is generally its nose color. The dog’s coat may be, for example. entirely sable, but if it has a blue nose, it’s genetically blue-pigmented. A dog with two copies of the recessive “d” allele will have a dilute colored coat and will always pass on a copy of the dilute allele to his or her puppies.

Image of an apricot-dilute Chinese Shar-Pei found on Pinterest – and for reasons that elude us, the link to find photo credit went to a page selling bracelets at Nordstroms. So, we’re very happy to give photo credit once we get information.