The Genetics
Genetically, the blue color in the Weimaraner is dominant over the more common silver-gray color. The blue color is definitely not a recessive trait as stated in error in the present (1957) Weimaraner standard. The silver-gray is recessive to the blue. The blue color is not a "throw-back," an unscientific term which is sometimes applied to the re-appearance of a long-buried recessive trait.
The chances against the appearance of another blue mutation are almost astronomical, but barring such a chance, it is genetically impossible for a Blue Weimaraner to be produced from the breeding of two silver-gray dogs, regardless of the color of the parents or other ancestors of the dogs being bred. Barring a mutation, the only way that a litter can be produced which has one or more blue puppies in it, is for one or both parents to be blue. In the determined effort to smear the blue Weimaraner, which has been going on steadily since 1950, many deliberately false and malicious statements have been made, verbally and in print, regarding Caesar von Gaiberg. Most of these statements either hint that his German registration and pedigree were falsified (a charge rejected by the A.K.C.) or that there was a prohibition against breeding endorsed upon Caesar's official German pedigree, which was signed by the president of the German Weimaraner Club.
When a blue Weimaraner is bred to a silver-gray Weimaraner, there is no mixing or blending of colors. The two colors are two distinct entities or units, and they remain so. It is not like the mixing of cream and coffee, but rather like the mixing of 50 gray marbles and 50 blue marbles in a bucket. When you grab out a handful you will, on the average, get some blue and some grays, but no intermediate colors. If you grab out enough handsful, you will have 50 percent blues and 50 percent grays, just as you do if you breed blue Weimaraners to gray Weimaraners enough times to permit the law of averages to operate. These blue Weimaraner puppies will carry genetic factors for both the blue and gray colors and they are known as "Blue Dominants."
When the blue offspring, of one blue and one gray parent, is bred to another blue offspring of one blue and one gray parent, the genetic expectation will be for a litter of 25 percent pure grays and 75 percent blues. These grays will be pure grays; they will carry no blue factor and if bred to grays, they will never produce blue offspring in future generations. The 75 percent of the litter which are blue in color are, genetically, two different kinds of blue - pure blues and blue dominants. Twenty-five percent of the 75 percent will be pure blue; they will carry no gray factor and regardless of whether they are bred to blues or grays they will produce litters having nothing but blue puppies in them. The remaining 50 percent are blue in color, they are blue dominants; they carry factors for both blue and gray and if bred to grays will produce litters of 50 percent grays and 50 percent blue dominants.
Every gray Weimaraner, regardless of whether his parents and his ancesters are blue or gray, is a pure gray and carries no blue color factor.
