Dog coat

Close up of a greyhound's coat.

A dog's coat is the hair covering its body. A dog can have a double coat that has short, soft hair underneath a layer of long, coarse hair, or a single coat that has only the long, coarse hair. A dog's coat may also be called hair or fur.

Four main coat attributes

Dog coats can come in many different colors, patterns, lengths, and textures.

Coat colors

Dog coats come in four main colors: black, brown, white, and red. The same main color can have many shades. These shades are sometimes common enough that they are given their own color names, such as gold, yellow, cream, blue, and grey.

There may be several of these colors on one dog.

Brown	Brown Chesapeake Bay Retriever	Dark chocolate Australian Kelpie
Red	Red Irish Setter	Red Chow Chow
Black	Black Newfoundland	Black Labrador Retriever
White	White American Eskimo Dog	White Bichon Frisé
Gold	Golden Retriever
Apricot	Apricot Poodle
Yellow	Yellow mixed-breed dog	Yellow Labrador Retriever
Cream	Cream French Bulldog	Cream Akita
Blue	Kerry Blue Terriers	Blue Australian Shepherd
Grey	GreyWeimaraner	Grey Miniature Schnauzer

Coat patterns

Dog coats can also have many different patterns based on spots, patches, and mixing colors.

Black and tan, brown and tan, blue and tan: This pattern has two colors, with a dark color on most of the body and tan patches on the belly, legs, chest, face, and eyebrows.	Brown and tan Australian Kelpie	Black and Tan Coonhound
Bicolor (also called Two-color, Irish spotted, Flashy, Patched, Tuxedo): This pattern can be found with any color or even other pattern as long as it includes white spots. These spots can be on the feet, tail, nose, and neck, or even cover most of the dog. Sometimes special patterns of white have special names. For example, the Irish Spotted pattern is the same on both sides of the dog and includes a white chest, a white ring around the neck, a white belly, and white feet.	Black and white Border Collie	Blenheim (Red-brown and white) Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Tricolor: This pattern has three clear colors. The body of the dog is usually black, brown, or blue. Its belly is white, and it has tan patches.	Black tricolor Entlebucher Mountain Dog	Tricolor Beagle
Merle: This pattern happens when a dog's colors are mixed in with white in spots and patches.	Blue merle tricolor Australian Shepherd	Red merle Catahoula Leopard Dogs
Tuxedo: This pattern is when a dog is mostly one color, but has a white patch on its chest, a white spot on its chin, and white on its feet.	Tuxedo Chihuahua.
Harlequin: This pattern is when a white dog has black patches with an uneven border.	Harlequin Great Dane
Spotted: This is when a mostly white dog has any color of small spots.	Spotted Dalmatian
Flecked, ticked, speckled: This is when a dog has very small spots of one color mixed in with its main color.	Brown-ticked German Shorthaired Pointer	Blue speckled Australian Cattle Dog
Brindle: This pattern is when a dog's coat is a mix of black with brown, tan, or gold. It sometimes makes a "tiger stripe" pattern.	Brindle and white Boston Terrier	Brindle Galgo Español
	Brindle Mountain Cur	Brindle Great Dane
Saddle or blanket: When a dog has a large colored patch on its back.	Norwegian Dunker with black saddle
Sable: This pattern happens when a dog has black tips on its fur.	Red sable Pomeranian	Brown sable Shetland Sheepdogs

Coat lengths and textures

The Puli's coat forms cords as it grows.

Hairless and Coated Xoloitzcuintli.

A dog's coat can be long or short. For most dogs, their hair reaches one length and then stops growing, but there are some dogs whose hair will keep growing longer and longer.

Some breeds of dog do not grow hair on parts of their bodies. These dogs are called "hairless". Examples of "hairless" dogs are the Xoloitzcuintli (Mexican Hairless Dog), the Peruvian Inca Orchid (Peruvian Hairless Dog) and the Chinese Crested.

Additional reading

Cunliffe, Juliette (2004). "Coat Types, Colors and Markings". The Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds. Paragon Publishing. pp. 20–23 and various. ISBN 0-7525-8276-3.
Fogle, Bruce (2000). "The Breed Section Explained". The New Encyclopedia of the Dog. Dorling Kindersley. p. 83 and various. ISBN 0-7513-0471-9.

Dog Coat Media

Montage showing the coat variation of the dog.
A Labrador exhibiting a yellow coat colour
Miniature Dachshund black and tan. "Rex" Taken Feb 22, 2004 at the SMART/USDAA dog agility competition in Salinas, CA.
Jenny, a five year old miniature pinscher residing in Maine.
Two Borzois playing KABUKI
Argentinian Mastiff
Bassethound

Other websites

Schmutz, Sheila M. (March 4, 2020). "Dog Coat Color Genetics". University of Saskatchewan. Archived from the original on November 1, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020.