Did you know that pugs come in many colors? Most people only know the standard Fawn and Black. Fawn and Black are the only current colors allowed in the AKC show ring, but those are not the only colors out there. When the pug breed became recognized with AKC, it was determined that Fawn and Black were the most desirable colors. Therefore, the other colors were all but bred out of the breed. Fortunately, a few dedicated breeders continued working with these other colors in a few countries. At the time, the USA had none. It wasn’t until the last decade that the colors were imported into the USA and we were able to begin working with them here.
The White pug is the hardest to work with. It is a form of Leucism and is a recessive gene. This means both parents must carry the gene in order for them to have white babies. There are different forms of Leucism like blue eyed, black eyed, pink noses, and black noses. But, all are Leucistic, as Leucism by definition is a partial loss of pigmentation in an animal, resulting in white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, scales, feathers, etc, but not the eyes. In Leucistic Fawn pugs you will get a very white pug puppy. Whereas in Leucistic Blue and Black pugs you will get a Chinchilla pigmentation mixed into the White. Due to the recessive nature of the gene, it takes breeders many years to continue being able to keep this color in the pugs. Therefore, this is by far the rarest of the colors out there and will consequently cost a bit more. But they are certainly beautiful and worth it.
Most white pugs today can credit their heritage to a small breeder, named John Lapp, in Pennsylvania that somehow had a White pug born that he then duplicated. Some of John’s dogs made their way to the west coast where breeders there worked hard to duplicate the color by using only pugs in their programs and then breeding these whites into existing pug lineages. The result is today’s White pugs which are brilliant in every way and have the same personality as any other colored pug. Other colors bred out are Blue and Brindle. Blue pugs are also called Silver/Grey. They are basically a black pug with different amounts of silver hairs trickled into the coat to give them a charcoal coloration that is spectacular.
The Brindle and Blue genes are not recessive and can be carried by parents that are not Brindle or Blue themselves. They can be produced by a single parent carrying the gene, rather than needing both parents. They are an easier color for breeders to continue working with. The breeding process is still in it’s youth, so there are not a whole lot of purebred Brindles out there. I imagine they will be much more common in the coming decade as there are people working towards trying to get the colors accepted into the AKC show ring. Whether or not they will be remains uncertain since AKC rejected the colors in the show ring to begin with. Breeders will continue trying to improve the quality of all the rare colors in hopes someday AKC will allow them in. AKC does however allow them to be registered with the AKC since they are still purebred pugs; They simply cannot be shown. There is also Apricot which is simply a color variant of Fawn that is a deeper orange color. We personally love all the colors. It matters not what color they are. Pugs of all colors are amazing pets and family members that make our hearts happy!