#vs sigurd who has always been blinding white

[darkwood-sleddog]

@groenendaze​ this is a question I get a lot, I agree she is really unique!

Zombie is registered as white. White in Alaskan Malamutes is ‘ee’ or ‘recessive red’. The recessive red masks other pigment beneath it, but the dog retains its normal pigment on its eye rims, pads, nose etc (she has black pigment on these areas, much like a Golden Retriever or a Samoyed).

Now Alaskan Malamutes do come in red like Mick-Shrock’s Akicita Qwest WTDX ROMWD below (a recent ancestor of all of my dogs):

but the red in Alaskan Malamutes is on the “brown” or Liver Locus which causes the pigment of ALL of the dog to be brown (like the nose for example or eye rims, much like a Chocolate Labrador).

So why does Zombie have such reddish coloring to her coat? Simply put, there are different intensity levels of the recessive red color (think of the difference between a pale almost white “english” golden vs a deep red american field line golden). There is a gene responsible for the intensity difference in malamutes...talked more about HERE, but it is basically how we get the difference between the Classic Gray and White:

vs a “Sable” Alaskan Malamute (the dogs are not genetically sable...it’s a breed term), 

Sigurd & Zombie’s Mom, Yoko Nordiclight of Indian Valley WPD WTA WTDA ROMWD is a sable dog and having met her in person I can attest to just how brownish these dogs are in person, the phaeomelanin (the red pigment) really shows through and you get an very different looking coat color than the completely washed out classic Gray & White.

Sable can occur on ANY color, like this Black & White boy, FI CH EE CH RU CH HeJW-15 SM-REK-4-18 KNIGHT ASLAK POLÀRNÌ ÙSVIT, seen here on the left next to a non sabled dog:

Slash’s mom, Nordiclight’s Salem WTD  (and Slash also!) displays this intense pigmented sableing. Typically dogs on the black and tan spectrum (like they are) display very washed out phaeomelanin, making them almost indistinguishable from seal & white (domino black & white in genetic terms), but for some reason this genetic line has very intense phaeomelanin. Slash’s mother’s father is the littermate of Sigurd & Zombie’s mother, Slash’s mom Salem below:

So based on what we know about coat color and sableing, as well as the placement of the phaeomelanin pigment in non-white dogs that have sableing, Zombie’s color can be explained as white, with sable.