Several AKC breed standards indicate that color is immaterial, the Xolo, Azawakh, Greyhound and American Staffordshire Terrier among them.
Another one is the Whippet. No one color is more valuable or desired than another (and if a breeder says otherwise, consider it red flag hinting at a profit-driven breeder). We came across an interesting bit of lore regarding black Whippets, however, and perhaps a bit of falsehood regarding them.
Whippets, Eddie and Enzo, have a visually beautiful Instagram page that makes the most out of these two black hounds. Except for the occasional post which flashes a brown eye here, a pink tongue there, the overall scheme is monochromatic – and in our view, stunning.
We have found nothing to substantiate the assertion that black is a rare color in Whippets, but not long ago, we overheard someone suggest otherwise. Curious, we investigated. We still didn’t find data to support the spurious claim, but we did come across a folk tale.
As the story goes, Whippets-particularly black Whippets-were especially prized by some groups within Britain’s Romani community for their usefulness in poaching game from wealthy estates at night. Their dark coats made them nearly invisible at dusk, helping their owners evade detection by gamekeepers. Human nature being what it is, this word-of-mouth factoid evolved into the (so far) unprovable narrative that black Whippets were deliberately bred out of show lines by fanciers, making solid black Whippets particularly uncommon and sought-after for their rarity and mystique.
There is a particular beauty in the lines of a Whippet, and a black Whippet resembles art deco with a pulse. But highly rare?
The expression of the black color in Whippets is largely governed by the MC1R gene which controls the production of the black pigment know as eumelanin, and its interaction with other loci such as ASIP and the K locus. The K locus determines whether a Whippet will have a solid or brindle coat: the dominant K allele produces a solid color (including black), while the K^br allele results in brindle striping. Furthermore, the D locus, or MLPH gene, can dilute black pigment to blue, further reducing the visible frequency of true black coats in the population. The genetics may support the plausibility of black being uncommon, but rare? We hope to hear from Whippet people!
Image: Whippet by Helen Theron
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