Ruben's face

superruben · #1 13th December 2006, 10:09 PM

Hello all, haven't been around in quite a while. I hope everyone is doing well. I have a question I need help with. I have noticed in the past week or so that Ruben's white face is turning into a black face. He used to have white on both sides of his nose and now one side has turned almost completely black and I can see where the white above his nose is starting to turn also. Is this normal or something I should be concerned about? He is not quite 14 months old.

Louise501 · #2 14th December 2006, 02:01 AM

It is possible for a boxers flash to shrink on their face as they get older. I know Angel's stripe has narrowed and Ruby has lost her teeny white stripe too.

Biff · #3 14th December 2006, 05:29 AM

Do you have any pics?

**gmacleod** · #4 14th December 2006, 05:47 AM

It's pretty normal

What you've got to figure here is that the white areas aren't colour. They're the exact opposite - areas of NO colour. That is, areas of where pigmentation did not develop. Pigment is something that starts developing in utero, but that is far from complete at birth. It starts out from a few specific spots on the dog and spreads from there. So it is perfectly normal, even near-inevitable, that the extent of white on baby puppies is going to "shrink" as they get older. Or the dog grows and the white doesn't, if you prefer to look at it that way.

Now, I know you're not talking about a baby pup here! But irrespective, it's still normal for pigment to continue to develop as the dog ages. On whites and on dogs with large areas of flash on the chest and belly, for example, as the dog gets older we usually see a lot of pigment spots start to develop on the skin (like freckles). The pigment there isn't usually "strong" enough to also colour the hair, but it's continued development nonetheless. All normal

In your guy's case, the flash on one side of his face was always far less pronounced than on the other side. And that's where further development of his pigment has gradually eroded the white.

Anyway, it is all perfectly normal. If his facial white had been even, then probably you wouldn't really have noticed it shrinking much (even though it may still have shrunk) because it would do so evenly. But because one side had stronger pigment in the first place, it is just more obvious, I think. Either way, it is no problem at all and is a perfectly normal and natural occurance

superruben · #5 14th December 2006, 07:23 AM

Thank you very much! I thought so but just wanted to make sure and I knew there was no better place to come for an opinion! I guess he's just one of the rare cases in which the hair changed because the acutal hair is also turning going from white to black. He's is also developing about a 1/2 thick line of dark pigment that sort of outlines his flash on his chest and belly, but so far the hair there is still white.