How do you know what color a German shepherd will be?

I am looking to buy a black and tan German shepherd at 8 weeks old. I want the normal black and Tan German shepherd with the black around the muzzle the forhead should be blakcish tan, the back should be black and the side should be tan along with the feet. I was wondering how you could tell.

by looking at the puppy you are going to buy

With the german shepherd breed you can pretty much tell when they are puppies. If you are concerned, look at the parents.

A GSD puppy is the same color as he is going to be as an adult.

They usually have the same colouring as adults as they do puppies. Now, if you were going to get a sable....that's a whole different story. They seem to change colour with every change of coat (spring/fall blowouts). You're best off to ask the breeder. Also, sometimes the best dog for you out of the litter isn't the one that fits your colour preference. Many breeders prefer to pick the puppy for you so that they know you two are the best possible match, and thus will have the best partnership possible. This can avoid problems that come from a high energy puppy adopted by a low-key couple, or a high drive pup adopted by a family just wanting a happy-go-lucky family pet (or any of the vice-versas). Sometimes, that matching means that the best pup for you is one that is black or sable instead.This is a really interesting site for more information on colouring, structure, and the various lines.http://www.shawlein.com/The_Standard/Index_Page/Index_Page.htm Much more important than the colour of the pup you're looking to buy, is what type of german shepherd line it is from, and who the parents are: whether they've been OFA'd/PennHIPed for generations, temperament testing, etc. etc. And just as important for you individually, what the puppy is like: it's energy level, amount of drive, type of drive, confidence, toughness, ease of handling, etc.One breeder I've found that I like is http://www.myguardianangelshepherds.com/index.htmlShe has a lot of really good information, and is an example of a very good breeder of the European working line (Dutch, etc., vs the DDR/germany working lines).I do NOT recommend any of the AKC/CKC show line german shepherds. They are cripples, and almost all of them with shot temperaments to boot - no nerves to speak of.

your best bet is to see the parents they will usually take there parents markings if that's not possible get hold of your pup and ruffle its hair the wrong way and you should see tan hair coming through black and tan pups tend to get their tan as there puppy hair comes out they are born almost black when they are born (well they look just like tiny rottweilers when born) and there tan comes through later.I breed german shepherds and experienced quite a few litters i just recently bought a sable pup who looked all tanny colour and now that her puppy hair is falling out she has got allot darker shes really nice

German Shepherd puppies do INDEED change color. Puppies born dark sable turn light gray then back to dark sable. Saddlebacks (the type you want) and blanket backs look exactly the same until they blow their puppy coat.You can NOT tell which color they will be until they blow their puppy coat.Saddlebacks aren't "normal". They're one of the many accepted colors. Common, but not "normal".-edit- Les what the heck are you talking about now?Talk about education...if you knew jack diddly you'd know that "black sable" doesn't exist. Gray sable is gray sable, some are darker than others, but there is no such thing as "Black sable" in any registry. If you don't believe they chance colors I can show you pics of my pups born black or black and tan, turning gray, and becoming dark sable. My current male was born jet black with dark brown legs, turned a very light gray, and is now what you would (mistakenly) call "black" sable,Secondly, tan "point" wouldn't be correct terminology either as saddle back and blanket backed dogs (should) have black muzzles and black tipped tails. So again, the correct terminology would be "Black and tan"...and black and tan puppies can turn out to be saddle backs, or blanket backs...some can even turn out to be bi color if the facial markings recede which I've seen happen as well, granted that most bi-colors are born with a black face.That's all, you can return to your GSD Lala World now!

Simply look at the pup. If it has a black body and tan pasterns it is a tan-point (=saddled-marked, whether bi-colour, or extended saddle aka "blanket back", or saddle), although it has less tan at 8 weeks old than it does at a year old, and the black is duller than it will be after the adult coat emerges (starting at about 14 weeks).The tan will spread until about 3 years old, but it will be the same tan UNLESS colour-paling takes effect.A clue to the possibility of colour-paling is whether the parents have a pale fawn instead of a rich tan.There are also genes for black-loss. If the hair between the pup's ears looks smokey rather than deep black, expect the saddle to end up minimal, and possibly an energy chocolate shade rather than a shiny blue-black.• Add http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/The_GSD_Source to your browser's Bookmarks or Favorites so that you can easily look up such as feeding, vaccinations, worming, clubs, weights, teething, neutering, disorders, genetics in the public section.If you Join it you can click Photos to see how various pups have looked at different ages.• To ask about GSDs, join some of the 400+ YahooGroups dedicated to various aspects of living with GSDs. Each group's Home page tells you which aspects they like to discuss, and how active they are. Unlike YA, they are set up so that you can have an ongoing discussion with follow-up questions for clarification. Most allow you to include photos.Learn some colour-physics and colour genetics, [Curtis]. (I wish KCs would learn that red - the colour seen almost at one edge of rainbows - is NOT a canine colour!)And why introduce sables when the Asker wants to know about tan-points?Although traditional wolf-sables do some things that are puzzling to newbies, except for the few true black-sables around they do NOT change colour any more than do tan-points.And of course self-colours don't change colour.Correct GSDs are born black or almost-all-black.Off-colours have had their eumelanin (=black pigment) degraded to liver or blue.Self-whites have NO coat-colour.Those GSDs that aren't self-colours also have tan.End of colour range.That's 3 actual colours (tan, liver, blue), plus the 2 non-colours black and white. (I know one GSD person who produced Isabellas in her first-&-only litter, but let's not go THERE!)The so- called "Panda" Shepherds descended from Franka von Phenom have exactly the same 5 colours (naturally "breeders" of off-colours straightaway mated their "Panda" to one of their off-colours then back-crossed.... "Cute! Rare!"...)Traditional sables lose most of their birth-black (or blue, or liver) as their coat dries, the puppy-coat being an undercoat, not guard-hairs. The essential difference between wolf-sables and tan-points is that tan-points have their black hairs black all the way to the follicle, whereas wolf-sables have their black hairs graduated from a black tip to a pale base.The ratio of black-length to pale-length produces the difference between gray-sables and gold-sables.That "black-length-ratio" is genetically separate from the modifiers that control how far the tan spreads. True black-sables don't reveal their tan until they change from "self-black" to "bi-colours" at 14-20 weeks old, followed by the pale bases of the black hairs extending slightly with moults. With dark-gray-sables and bi-colours the tan barely spreads at all (and those tar-heels & pencil-markings remain for life), leaving them black right across the sternum. With medium-gray sables and blanket backs the tan barely reaches the body but does cover the sternum and most of the thighs. For gold-sables and saddle-backs the tan spreads well into the body.And then there are tan-points with severe black loss (usually with self-white ancestry) that they can produce so little eumelanin that by 18-24 months their guard hairs have pale bases and so they resemble wishy-washy gold-sables. (In 1976 or 77 I accosted one show judge who'd placed every sable last except when there was another sable behind it, and asked what he had against sables. He claimed he'd given BOB to a sable.... yeah, well, she was a severe black-loss tan-point from a kennel based on a sister of my brood and which used the stud I'd used, or used his brother.... I guess the ignorant Ozzie judge thought the true sables were blues...)Les P, owner of GSD_Friendly: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/GSD_Friendly"In GSDs" as of 1967