The masking gene
The E locus is home to one of the most confusing colours in the breed. A dog with the code e/e is recessive red — often called ee red, gold, Australian red or "oz red." The e/e combination acts as a masking gene: it blocks eumelanin from reaching the coat, so whatever colour the dog is genetically, the coat comes out somewhere between a deep ginger and a light biscuit.
Genetically, an e/e red dog can still be black, diluted black (blue or slate), brown, or diluted brown (lilac) underneath. The coat will not tell you which — but the pigment will.
Read the true colour from the nose
Because the mask only affects the coat, the nose, eye rims and lips keep the dog’s real colour. That makes the nose the single best clue to what an ee red dog actually is:
In young puppies the pigment is still filling in, so a nose can start out spotty and darken over the first weeks and months. A chocolate‑based ee red, for example, shows chocolate flecks coming in on the nose — proof of the brown underneath.
What ee red hides
The mask is thorough. An ee red dog can also be a merle or carry tan points, and you simply will not see them — the ee red does not allow the merle pattern or the tan points to show through the coat, even though they are there.
The dudley nose
Some ee red dogs develop a nose that fades or "washes out" over time — the so‑called dudley nose. Eye colour on an ee red can be almost anything, since the dog can be any colour underneath. There is more on this on the Nose & Eye Colour page.
