Silvering/greying patterns in seniors

Blanche has raised an interesting topic about how quite a few of the pugs she had seen are quite completely white-headed by the time they are 10 or so, we were wondering if this was as prevalent in other countries or if extreme silvering (the whole head) was not so common until quite a few years later (15+???).

Could you please post pics of your seniors, angels are welcome (hey I can think of few I'd like to see again even if if we get a bit teary...)

Here is my Boots, she is currently 14...(this was taken after she had kicked Cheddar off the chew lounge and stolen his deer antler LOL she obviously enjoyed it!) Her chin and toes are silver, white spectacles around her eyes and grey on the muuzzle and that's about all.



Here is Crystal, this pic was not long before she passed, she was close to 16, you can see silver mask but not the whole face or head silver...


Here is Velvet, she was 15 when she passed in her sleep last year, this is an earlier pic but the patterning was much the same still 4 years later, she also got silver lines on her toes, legs and tail:


Please post your senior pics (angels welcome) it will be interesting to compare them here.

Oh I'm going to enjoy this thread!

Here's Rudy, she's 11 1/2 and barely has any grey.



Here's Kittie, she'll just be 9 in Dec. She started turning grey by the time she was a year old. Her breeder told me she would, it runs in her sire's line

Tilly is only 8 years old and is already almost totally grey. She was born with a white spot on her chin and I think that may have sped things along

Here's my Angel. She's 13ish - please excuse her red lips...bad allergy day for her.

Beau (the vet said he's 12+)

George (just turned 12)

Rocky (11)

All three of my seniors

My white faced pugs:
Maudie. She was 8(?) when she came into rescue from a puppy mill and died at age 10+. She was pretty much this white from the day she came in the door of my house.
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Bob. He came to me at age 10 and was a rare white faced pug then.
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Tank. He came at 8.5 and still had a mask, but has greyed significantly over the last two years.
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Hazel still has a mask and she's somewhere between 10 and 12, we think.
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And Sweet Pete kept some black up until the end. We lost him to malignant melanoma when he was 10. Although he got very grey in the last couple of months of his life
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I'd say it was diet except that I would think everyone would go grey early or quasi-early if it were diet. And I do supplement with kelp and other sea vegetables which should, in theory, help with maintaining the colour.

I've always wondered if it's the rough early starts that grey some of them--and age them in other ways--or just genetics. Likely genetics because both Hazel and Pete had TERRIBLE backgrounds and held on to their masks. Maudie also had a terrible background, but she came to me very badly damaged physically and emotionally from her years in the mill. And kudos to Prairie Pugs for saving her.

Hooli is 9 and is going grey fast, but he also started early. I think he started around 2.

My younger kiddos have some grey too - even Dre, who's line doesn't grey prematurely. I think it's due to the hard water/minerals in the water here.

Lord knows Jessie & Bello don't have great genetic lines...

but Dre does, so that's why I'm guessing environment plays into it too.

I got Rocky as a young puppy (from Missouri ) but he has always had a good life with me - dogtor visits & good food plus of course tons of love. He started turning grey early but it hasn't progressed as fast as my others.

George came from SEPRA when he was 3 years old with very little background info. He did have a son (Lucky, who I also adopted) so he may have been used as part of a breeding pair. He wasn't too grey when I first got him but he's pretty white now.

Beau just joined our family 2 1/2 months ago. I know absolutely nothing about his history. He was skinny, with very long nails & nasty breath from bad teeth. He's very grey but his face isn't any greyer than George's.

I think it is really cute how they keep the dark colouring in a patch below their noses. Makes them look a bit like Koalas.

I'll need to dig around for some before and after pics, but my foster Abercrombie went through quite the color change while I had him. He was very grey/silver when he came in, and after 4 months of very good food and love, much of his fur darkened back up. It was so noticable, that when people saw him when he got adopted, that hadn't seen him since he came into rescue, even commented to me how much darker he had gotten.

So for some, I think diet can play a big part of it.

My Ichiro started greying early. He is only 6 now, and much of his face is grey. I think he'll be a white faced pug. And, he is straight from a puppy mill in Alabama.

This thread is making me cry. I will post Thelma, Louisie and Beau pictures when I get home tonight.

Here's a picture of Maude and Tank. This was just before Maudie died and right after Tank arrived. You can see his mask andher white face. Now some of Tank's dark colouring is bad skin and yeast infections in that picture.
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And I wanted to post a better picture of Petie. He got me started in Pug Rescue. He lived his first 5 years chained up in a backyard in Montreal, then his owners discovered he was blind and dumped him at a shelter to be euthanized. He came to me and became a therapy dog. We loved him so much.

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No seniors here, but I'm enjoying all the pictures.

Jackson has the same grey pattern as Kitty and Tilly-- mostly his chin and then vertically along the sides of his muzzle--and it started early like they did. Although he didn't have Tilly's chin spot from birth, he did have a little grey in his chin before he was a year old. I've just started noticing a few grey eyelashes too (at almost-8) so I know the rest isn't far behind. Interestingly, his ears were a lot like Tilly's as a puppy. They started out pretty light and darkened up a he got older. He's always been a light shade of fawn and has a pretty clear coat. His trace was also very faint when he was young and has darkened over time. He has some black nails and some that are lighter. I've always wondered if it's been his general lack of pigment that made him grey so young.

Sammy's older, but has less grey. His is really just in his muzzle.

I love the black pugs with the "eyebrows" pattern of grey, like Angela's Velvet and Penny Lane and Toby Love Jones.

Rhoda's chin was completely gray by the time she was 2. She had an interesting chest/tummy/legs graying going on through the years too -- it started with a few scattered gray hairs on her chest, and by the time she passed at age 13, her tummy was entirely white with only a few black hairs. She had completely white feet, too.

And for her last few years, she had a really cool "skunk stripe" on her tail. It started right above her butt and the entire back side of her tail turned totally white.

Here she is at at age 8. You can see the chest whitening is already well under way, as are her lovely gray cheeks. She had the most wonderful big gray eyebrows in her final years, too. This picture pre-dates that.

Maryjo wrote:This thread is making me cry. I will post Thelma, Louisie and Beau pictures when I get home tonight.

Yes, please!!!

SacramentoPugs wrote:Rhoda's chin was completely gray by the time she was 2. She had an interesting chest/tummy/legs graying going on through the years too -- it started with a few scattered gray hairs on her chest, and by the time she passed at age 13, her tummy was entirely white with only a few black hairs. She had completely white feet, too.

And for her last few years, she had a really cool "skunk stripe" on her tail. It started right above her butt and the entire back side of her tail turned totally white.

Here she is at at age 8. You can see the chest whitening is already well under way, as are her lovely gray cheeks. She had the most wonderful big gray eyebrows in her final years, too. This picture pre-dates that.

You could be describing Velvet exactly, especially the "Skunk Stripe" but her feet still had the outside toes black - she looked like she was wearing taba socks LOL!

Here's Betsy in "white face" about a month ago at 15 years, 4 months old (and counting). She also has gone white on her underbelly and inner legs. . Hubby, on the other hand, has just gone grey on top .