Is my Athena a long stock or long coat?? Pics attached

[Sammydtd]

Hi guys,

So I guess my Athena who, in a few days will be 5 months, is finally starting to grow her hair. When I got her, she was suffering from a severe worming attack. As a result, her coat was dry and felt, for lack of a better word, dead to the touch. She was also super skinny too and hardly ate at all.

two months later, and she has gained weight, going from 17 pounds to almost 39 pounds in two months! Is her weight normal for her age (5 months)?

Also, her hair has began to grow considerably and is now a very rich thick coat with a bitch strip down the middle with a considerable parting down her spine. She also has the ear tufts of feathers since we got her. Oh, and she has a very thick, bushy, and feathery white (under the black) tail...it looks kinda weird to me!

According to what I read, will she be a long coat then??? Her coat isn't as long as other shepherds which were considered long coat, so I am a little confused.

Finally, I attached a pic of her belly, is that an undercoat or is she missing it, she hasn't been shedding that heavily yet, so I'm also confused!

Thanks guys!


Thoughts please???

[Sammydtd]

More pics, off a better camera...

See how weird her tail is? We don't get a lot of long haired GSDs here, and her parents were brought her from the US....mostly short stock black and tan shepherds here...

BTW, do you guys think she will become black and tan or more red? She's mostly tan now, except for the long hairs behind her ears.

[Cassidy's Mom]

If she's lean but not skinny, you can see a "waist" when viewing her from above and a tuck up at her abdomen when viewing her from the side, then her weight is perfect for her. There is no one size fits all "normal" weight by age.

Since she's still so young and her adult coat has just started coming in it's probably too soon to know if she's a true longcoat (no undercoat) or a long stock coat. If you're referring the longer wavy hair down her back as a bitch stripe, that's not what it is. It's normal to see the adult coat first in that strip of hair, and then it will spread over the rest of the body. A bitch stripe is where the black saddle will start to have some lighter ticking, and she's too young for that.

You can see it in this picture here - Dena's back was completely black like Athena's when she was that age, but as she matured it looked like this:



I don't see anything weird about her tail. Halo has some lighter cream colored fur on the underside of her tail too. Athena's tail fur will get longer as her adult coat continues to come in.

[msvette2u]

Looks like a budding long-coat

[Freestep]

She's a longcoat, and her tail looks normal to me!

[Sammydtd]

Thanks for the replies guys, she's my first shepherd (after an English Bulldog, Amstaff, and a Cane Corso) so I'm still learning!

By weird I mean, it's pretty big for her age, and the white cream color of the feathers underneath I found to be different than the normal black tails her short coat puppy pals have! :-)

Do you think she will be a black and red or tan?

Thanks again guys!

[qbchottu]

Long coat, but a shorter long coat.

Partly genetics, but also due to the hot climate and weather in your area.

[KatsMuse]

Originally Posted by qbchottu

Long coat, but a shorter long coat.

This...and "ear floofies"!
Cute, cute, cute!