Found this and thought it interesting. They used a cohort of 400 dogs, and found that greying muzzle was associated with anxiety and stress - examples were, destruction when owners away, jumping on people, loss of focus, cringes, cowers in a group of people. The results were robust, along with the methodology although a retrospective study. Interestingly there were no correlations with spayed/neutered or not. We know that environmental factors as well as genetic factors have an impact on humans (elevated cortisol levels) interesting to see how this relates to dogs. http://www.appliedanimalbehaviour.com/article/S0168-1591(16)30277-5/abstract
"items indicating impulsivity included: jumping on people, inability to calm, loss of focus, hyperactivity after exercise." HeeHee - doesn't that describe every young Labrador on the planet?
Ummm, interesting. BJ (black) started going grey much the time his epilepsy starting showing itself, just over 3. A vet we spent quite a bit of time with - he was researching epilepsy in dogs - thought it was colour genetics that was the major influence. BJ was 1 of 13 pups from a yellow dam and black sire. All 13 pups were black and 5 of them had a quite distinct white flash on the chest - including BJ.
Riley has a very grey muzzle at 5. I blame the spaniel but I too was told black carrying yellow often go grey earlier.
How about it is associated with long life also. Ginger was so white she looked like a Hereford. White face, chest, paws etc. But she was 16. Tilly is starting to grey at the muzzle and paws at 10+.
LOL, I'm very grey, almost white. It started before I got Oban so I can't blame him. Many of my family went very grey before they hit the human equivalent of age 4 in dogs, if you use 4 x 7. Maybe it was their impulsive kids, oh wait, I was one of the kids.
Ha, I also thought it was about humans. I started getting grey hairs in my teens. Was 80% grey by my late 20s. Genetics, I hate you. At least dogs don't suffer from shame about their greys lol.
Simba started grey on his muzzle when he was three, and it's progressing. He's a pretty confident dog most of the time. I don't see most of the behaviour described above, except for the jumping on people
