Schnauzernut

I thought I had a pretty reasonable understanding of basic colour genetics in the mini schnauzer, but my latest litter has thrown a spanner in the works! Mum and dad are both black dogs. That means they are each carrying at least 1 black gene. Now I have a litter with 5 black, 1 pepper and salt, and 1 black and silver puppy. Because black and silver is recessive to both pepper and salt, and black, a black and silver dog must have 2 black and silver genes, right? By the laws of genetics, it must have got one from mum and one from dad. So that means mum and dad are each carrying one black gene and one black and silver gene. So where did the pepper and salt puppy come from ??? There is absolutely no chance that any other dog could have been involved in this mating... we live on a farm! And our dogs are always near us. I just can't work this out... Does anyone have any ideas or maybe I have missed something obvious here????

One thing I find that even the fussiest pregnant gal cannot resist is the humble boiled egg! I boil one up for my expecting mums every day from early pregnancy, then go up to 2 a day. They are so nutritious too!

Hi all, At what point does dog breeding morph from being a non-taxable hobby to being a taxable business? I checked this out some years ago. Though I'm a registered breeder I found that as long as you had less than 5 dogs, the ATO considered your dog breeding just a hobby. However, recently I heard that the rules have changed... I called the ATO to find out more, and the guy there just read out stuff from the ATO website about how you "qualify" for an ABN... While the gist was if there is an expectation of a consistent profit, you have a business, it was very general. There was no info specifically about dog breeding at all. I pointed this out and was advised to write in to the ATO and request a ruling. Well naturally I'm not real keen to do that until I know what the rules are.... It's a catch-22! Is there anyone out there who really knows what the current rules are? I have only ever had 4 or less dogs in my little team, but now am getting a bit worried that maybe I should start keeping receipts for everything. Thanks!