Judging Updates on the Pumi
BY CHRIS LEVY continued
The only acceptable color nose is black (or a black faded out), and even snow noses have black pigment around the rim of the nose. Because snow noses are so common in the breed, please do not heavily penalize these snow noses or you will force exhibitors to start coloring them. What you must do when judging is give extra credit to a white dog who does have good nose pigment. While white Pumik will usually have faded noses, the fawn Pumik do not seem to have that trouble. So if you are going to give extra credit to a white Pumi whose nose is not faded, make sure it’s not a fawn that has turned almost white (they have that fad- ing gene, too). You can tell a white from a fawn because the fawn will have black hairs in the coat, usually on the ears and tail, but it could be all over the body. The best thing to remember is to penal- ize the faded nose on a white dog to the extent of the deviation, recognizing that it’s hard to find a white with full nose pigment. We would all prefer that they be solid black, but at this point in our breed’s develop- ment, it’s very rare. COLOR SHADINGS VS PATTERNING (DQ) Because the Pumi has a fading gene like the silver Poodle or the Kerry Blue Terrier, they are born black and fade as they mature, but different parts of their body will fade a different rates and they rarely will be the same color all over their body. The Pumi tends to fade on the face and legs first. It is important to know this because the Pumi has a disqualification for “any mul- tiple-color pattern or patches” such as the black & tan pattern. Below are examples of black Pumik that are fading or have faded to gray. For a grey or silver gray Pumi, if their skin is injured, the hair will come back in black, and as the hair shaft gets longer will again fade to gray. This is not a patch of a different color, but only indicates that there’s been an injury of some kind. While the Kerry Blue Terrier has a similar (or the same) fading gene, a judge told one of our exhibitors that the color of the Pumi is called “blue”. That is not cor- rect for this breed–it is “gray” or “silver gray”. A Great Dane can also be “blue” (with the D gene for “dilution”) and that is an entirely different gene affecting not only the coat, but the nose and pig- ment color. Color designations can be breed-specific unless talking about the genetic description.
Puppies
Adults
This is opposed to a patterned black and tan (called “phantom” in the Poodle)
284 • S HOW S IGHT M AGAZINE , O CTOBER 2019
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