Color Coat Genetics/Inheritance:

Fawn & Brindle:

The Boxer comes in 2 colors; Fawn & Brindle. Brindles can range from very mild striping to heavy dark striping and fawns often range from a yellowish color to a deep dark red coloring. White Boxers are boxers with over 1/3 of the coat being white from the S Locus gene described below, however they do still have a base coat of either fawn of brindle.

So how do the genetics of a fawn and brindle boxer work when paired together?

The first thing to know is that in the boxer, fawn is the recessive trait and brindle is the dominant. Each pup gets one gene from the mother and one gene from the father, meaning that for a fawn dog to happen both parents must pass on a fawn gene to the offspring; if a brindle gene is passed on, the dog will be brindle.

Brindle dogs can be two types of genotypes:

• A dominant or double brindle: BB

• A single brindle: Bb

Double brindle does not mean that the brindle coloring will be darker, a single brindle can have dark brindling as well, it simply means that the dog can ONLY pass on the brindle trait to its offspring.

• A fawn would be: bb

So lets look at how to pair these together for potential litter outcomes:

Note that the chart states the percentage of possibility for a pup to have a certain color outcome. The chart is NOT stating that in a litter of 8 pups with a fawn parent and single brindle parent that 4 pups would be fawn and 4 would be brindle; rather, that each pup has a 50% chance to be a brindle or to be a fawn according to the genetics.

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PLAIN vs. FLASHY:

Most Boxers have some sort of white on them, whether it be a white collar, white mask on the face, white chest, white tipped paws, tail, etc. The white in the Boxer comes from the S Locus gene. As breeders understand the genetics behind the genes, they can pair their breedings to produce the genotypes and possible phenotypes that they desire or that they want to avoid.

Marking patterns in the Boxer:

• Solid: (SS) these are known as genetically plain boxers

• Flashy: (S/sp) note that a boxers phenotype (how they look outwardly) may look different than what their genotype actually is. For example: your boxer might not have a full white collar, but can still be genetically flashy.

• White (sp/sp): the boxer appears nearly Solid white

So how do I know if my boxer is genetically plain or genetically flashy?

https://www.pawprintgenetics.com/products/tests/details/176/

Now that you know what your boxer is, you know how to pair it to get the markings you desire/don't desire.

Breeding Combos:

Plain (SS) x Plain (SS) = Puppies are 100% Genetically Plain	Plain (SS) x Flashy (S/sp) = 50% Plain & 50% Flashy
Flashy (S/sp) x Flashy (S/sp)= 25% Plain, 50% Flashy, 25% white (sp/sp)	​I personally don't breed white boxers, as such the pairing option is not listed.

There you have it, the basics of coat color genetics in the boxer, and how to pair according to what you want!