Light eyes

[SunCzarina]

Tell me what you know! Otto is my first GSD to have lighter eyes. His sire's eyes are the same color but his dam's are dark. I've been noticing some pictures of darker dogs with lighter eyes and wonder, is it more common in black coats or very dark dogs? Both Otto grandsires are pure blacks.

This picture shows how light his eyes are in contrast to my female who has nice dark eyes. Oddly, her eyes always turn green with camera flash, his turn yellow

[pupresq]

Part of it is contrast - the darker the dog, the lighter the eyes are going to look in comparison because our eyes tend to judge things next to each other, same way putting a greenish blue next to a true blue will make the first color look much more green. We focus in on the differences.

As far as the actual color of the eyes, our boy Leo is a borderline blanket/saddle, but is fairly lightly pigmented (cream rather than red or tan etc) and he has very light eyes. Grace is a dark blanket and has extremely dark eyes. Our recent black foster Dahlia also had very dark eyes. Chris may be able to offer some insight on the genetics - her dogs (of all colors) seem to have extremely dark eyes.

[Rügen]

Hi Jenn-

I'm not sure about the inheritance of eye color. But the yellow/green difference you see in the photo above (I think) has more to do with Morgan's age and the development of cataracts. The article I linked below has a picture of an eye that looks just like Morgan's. Mully's did the same thing in photos as she "grew more mature." It never affected her negatively, just a part of getting older


http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/geriatrics.html


Eyes:
The most obvious sign of aging in a dog (and less in cats) is often seen in their eyes. That appearance to the center of the eye where instead of being dark or black it really looks like wax paper...that is due to a cataract. The normally clear lens begins to dehydrate and reflects light back from the eye instead of trapping the light and focusing it on the retina.

[Chicagocanine]

I wanted to mention that it is not necessarily cataracts if the dogs' eyes have that milky or light-reflecting appearance. My terrier started to develop that look to his eyes as he aged and one vet told me he had cataracts, however he still had perfect eyesight as he always had-- he was still able to catch a tiny falling crumb in the air and never had any sign of diminished sight. I went to another vet and she told me my dog had another condition dogs get when they are older which can cause that appearance but does not cause sight impairment. I believe it is called lenticular sclerosis and it is common to almost all older dogs, but does not affect their sight.

[littledmc17]

Brady has the Green/dark eyes and my lab has the light/gold eyes she is older than B boy
And that is with out me taking pics too

[SunCzarina]

This gave me a good excuse to look at old pictures. Maybe the contrast with the dark dogs is true. Luther had very dark eyes, so dark that people often thought his dots were his eyes. Looking at the pictures, his eyes look lighter in contrast to his big black head.

I found some where Morgan had eyes that look lighter than they do now, maybe they've darkened with age. Also I'm in total denial that my crazy chick is getting old! This was taken when she was about 14 months old, see the little whisps of grey under her chin? Green eyes too... I found some pictures where she had one green and one yellow eye in camera flash. Look too demonic to post those!

[Rügen]

Jenn, I didn't mean to diagnose Morgan, it was just a possibility.
Mully was only 5 when the vet saw it, later I noticed it in photos. She never had any issues with her eyes or sight. Morgan is beautiful and only slightly distinguished, she isn't that long in the tooth! So, I'll leave it to the experts on eye color inheritance~ btw she was an adorable pup!

[Chicagocanine]

If she didn't have any issues with her sight than it was not cataracts...

[SunCzarina]

It's ok, my girl has been slowing down the last year or so. Most nights she jumps up on the boys bed to read stories, it makes me sad to think about how much she loves my kids and after she's gone I won't be able to look at baby pictures without seeing how much she's always adored them. I wonder if anyone gets sad about these things when they look at dog who's only 7 - and yes I do feel silly but I love her to pieces.

[Barb E]

Here's an older post where eye color was talked about - with some pictures


http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/ubb...&gonew=1#UNREAD