The Eyes Have It!

"Silly question for you. I was reading an earlier post about eye color and it brought a question to mind. Are green eyes acceptable in Dals? I have a liver pup and her eyes were bright blue two weeks ago when I brought her home but it appears as though they are now taking on a greenish tint. The standard says brown or blue eyes so if they turn green, will she be disqualified from showing?
Thanks so much!"

Argus's mother Olivia has beautiful eyes!

Although the genes that allow Dalmatians to be either black or liver (and we will leave a discussion of lemon, orange, brindle, blue & tri-color for another time) also affect the color of the eyes, there are modifiers that affect the shade of that color. The eye color on black dogs may range from virtually black to very pale yellow, while the eyes on liver dogs range from deep brown to the same pale yellow, or virtually colorless. In general, black dogs have brown eyes while liver dogs have gold or light brown eyes. (Both blacks and livers may have blue eyes of course, but that’s a separate issue.)


In general, black dogs with dark eyes can produce liver dogs with dark (for a liver) eyes, while liver dogs with the dark eyes may produce blacks with very dark eyes. Light eyed blacks are often blamed on the fact that there may be liver in the pedigree, but that is only because breeders tend to accept light eyes on livers. While livers can not have near-black eyes, they can have dark eyes. By accepting pale eyed livers, we will also get light-eyed blacks. Many liver Dals have darker eyes than blacks.

Guessing eye color on Dal pups can be difficult, but my experience has been that the eyes on black spotted dogs will only get lighter (never darker) while the eyes on liver dogs often will darken with age. If the eyes on a liver pup show a narrow rim of dark gold around the pupil, or if they appear green at 8-10 weeks of age, they will normally be darker liver eyes. If the eyes are a light hazy bluish gold, they will generally be lighter, but they will normally darken somewhat by maturity.  People are often concerned when they see a distinct green color in the eyes of a liver spotted Dal.  Although greenish eyes do happen in a few breeds, I have never seen or heard of it in a Dalmatian.