Apricot and Lemon Color Dogs
The Progression From Birth

There have been so many questions on the color apricot and lemon its not funny.
How do you tell an apricot pup from a lemon pup?

There are pups born white and then get an apricot or lemon color with a black nose, then there are some born white that develop the same color yet have a blue nose and then there are the ones who develop the chocolate nose. What can be said with certainty is that the nose color will dictate what color lies underneath.

If the nose is blue the dog carries double blue. If the nose is chocolate then the dog carries double chocolate and if he has a black nose he carries neither chocolate nor blue.
 But .....what we now have essentially is a Blue Lemon, a dog that was born white yet has recessive blue, a Chocolate Lemon, a dog born white yet has recessive chocolate and a Blue Apricot, a dog that was born with color but has a blue nose.

Or a dog that has a chocolate nose and was born with color which makes them a Chocolate Apricot because they have a double recessive chocolate or Apricot, a dog born with color but has neither chocolate nor blue with a black nose.

Then there is the Lemon who is born white but has a black nose.

The NRTA has designated pups born white are of the lemon series if you will and the pups born with color are of the apricot colors. That is regardless of what color there nose is. We then place the blue or chocolate prefix before the color when necessary.

How on earth does this all get sorted out??
 The NRTA  goes by the genetics that the parents carry and to the best of our ability give them the proper formula. It is unclear what particular gene lets a pup be born white while others are not yet turn the same shade of color. There are several theories why this happens but its not so much why it happens its what do we call them.  We have come to see that certain lines will throw this white pup that turns up with color while other lines do not. Perhaps it is a particular dog that was in the makeup early on in the development. Some Rats have it and some don't even when both the white pups and the pups that develop color can happen in the same litter. So for sanity sake we have called those that are born white lemons and those born with color apricots.

In reality or rather in genetic theory and formulation the color apricot does not have the same formula as what we are calling apricot and lemon in our breed. Rather the color apricot is technically called Clear Red and lemon is called Lemon which both have the exact same formula. But people see the color apricot which is very descriptive of the color in a lot of instances and in other the color Lemon is more descriptive. To further complicate things the color Lemon is designated in certain breeds to dogs that look lemon in color but have a chocolate nose.

So what do we do??? Maybe go by Clear Red for dogs that are born with color and have a black nose. A dog that is born white and has a black nose and gets color later a Lemon. Those that are born with color and have a  chocolate nose or blue nose should be Chocolate Apricot and Blue Apricot and those that are born white and have a chocolate or blue nose should be called Chocolate Lemon and Blue Lemon. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? There is very clear delineation that way and is fairly easy to keep track of.


The following photos show progression of “Apricots” and “Lemons” from birth to either maturity or several weeks down the line.
The first photos are courtesy of Cheryl Long of Cheryls Little Rats AZ, Breeder of “MicroRatz Apricot Cookie” and Cookie’s new owner Doreen Lester of AZ.
The first two photos are the parents of “Cookie” and “Dusty” who is shown in the next set.
Longs Little Blue Zoe, mother
Longs Little Blue Bubba, father
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Doreen says, “Cookie's color is very interesting - she was born white and has developed the apricot color patches on her head (the rest of her body is still solid white). Her nose is dark slate blue and she also has the gray eyes.”

Newborn Cookie

Cookie at 2 weeks, you can see the rather
dramatic change between 2 and 3 weeks.
Note the lack of color pigment in the nose
Cookie 3 weeks of age

Cookie at 6 weeks, the
color is coming into the 
nose now.

8 weeks of age

Now 12 weeks, nose color is
complete and full color has developed
We know that apricot/lemon is a recessive gene and both parents need to carry it or one parent is of that color bred to a carrier. We also know that both parents were blue so Cookie’s nose is the color it is because she got blue from both sides. Technically she is a Blue Lemon.
.

This second set of photos is from Cheryl Long. The dogs name is Dusty. The parents are Zoe and Bubba, same parents as Cookie but different litters.

Longs Dusty

This is Dusty at birth, as you can see there is not
much color but not pure white.

Dusty is starting to develop more color.

Note the nose color coming now. The final color was
a blue shade.

This is Dustys litter mates. You would think
That Dusty is the pup on the right, but indeed he
is the one in the middle.
This litter was born white, but started coloring up within 30 minutes. His nose is not black and it is not self-colored.  His nose is blue/dark gray.

Cheryl Long, AZ
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This set is bred by Carol Pompey Fern Hills Rat Terriers, PA. The parents are shown first.

Fern Hill Roxy, mother

Monterey Diamond, father

Newborn litter showing the white and
the ones with some color at birth.

Roxy's litter at about 2 weeks
In this breeding the father is an apricot/lemon and the mother carries apricot/lemon so
producing that color pup. Both also carry chocolate so the pup on the extreme left is a Chocolate Apricot.
Note the nose color difference.
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