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EVERYONE LOVES CHOCOLATE!!!!
This page was last updated: September 24, 2012
COAT
Chocolate Havanese coat can vary from very light Cafe au Lait milk chocolate to a darker Bittersweet chocolate color so there may be Chocolate Sable, Chocolate Brindle, Chocolate/Tan, Chocolate Silver Havanese. Chocolate can be tinted golden, reddish or ash and come in many shades, from palest milk chocolate to darkest bittersweet chocolate. Chocolate refers to the pigment color and not only the coat color.
PIGMENT
True chocolate dogs must have self-colored liver or brown pigment on the nose, lips, pads and eye rims. Chocolate Havanese will have chocolate or clear nails. Chocolate Havanese dogs could not have anything black. All other colors of Havanese must have dark eyes and black pigment on the nose, eye rims, lips and pads.
EYES
Chocolate Havanese dogs have lighter colored eyes than non-chocolate Havanese dogs. Their eyes come in very similar colors like human eyes (all shades of brown, hazel and amber). The lighter coloration of the eyes on a chocolate Havanese, combined with its almond shape, creates an intelligent expression that appears nearly human. Just like human babies, chocolate Havanese puppies are born with blue eyes.
Nose and eye color combination is the most reliable indicator of whether a dog is actually chocolate or if it just has poor pigmentation. On a true chocolate dog, in addition to the liver pigment, the eye color will be lighter. If your dog's eyes are very dark, almost black with a lighter brownish nose, then what you have is poor pigmentation and not a chocolate.
Chocolate color is rare for Havanese. Both Havanese parents must carry a chocolate gene in order to produce chocolate puppies.
- If one Havanese dog is chocolate and the other Havanese dog is not chocolate and he does not carry a chocolate gene, there will be no chocolate Havanese puppies in the litter.
- If one Havanese dog is chocolate and the other Havanese dog is not chocolate but he is a chocolate gene carrier, probability is that half of the Havanese puppies in the litter will be chocolate.
- Two non-chocolate Havanese dogs will not produce any chocolate Havanese puppies if they don't carry a chocolate gene.
- Two non-chocolate Havanese dogs will not produce any chocolate Havanese puppies if only one of them carries a chocolate gene.
- Two non-chocolate Havanese dogs will usually produce one or two chocolate Havanese puppies in the litter only if they both carry a chocolate gene (25% of puppies in the litter will be chocolate statistically).
HAVANESE
are like CHOCOLATES......
You Can Never
Have Just One!
