Homozygous Tobiano -- Bear Paw

So I'm currently taking an equine genetics class and we were discussing tobiano's. My professor started to talk about how you can generally tell if a tobiano is homozygous due to "bear paw" markings. He asked if anyone knew what it was and nobody was answering, so I responded because I was pretty sure he was referring to the tiny spots of color some tobiano's have a tendency to get. Like such:


I apparently was incorrect. He couldn't describe it so he said he was going to post a picture to our class website so we could look at it. I received an email saying that he can't really find any good pictures.

He describes it as "Basically, it is described as a "darker roaning" pattern that can show up within the white markings typical to the Tobiano genotype"

Now I just feel like he's just saying how tobiano's have their little roan patches but why would that be so hard to describe?

Anyway, does anyone who is more versed in these "bear paws" have any good pictures that I can send him?

I thought that's what bear paws looked like? We called them "puppy paws" too. They CAN be roan spots in my experience, but otherwise they're just spots. My colt Rocky was homozygous for tobiano and he had these as well as the sharks teeth by his feet.

I'm not really sure what your professor means, and I'd love to see the picture if he can come up with one.

Lil More Conclusive

See I was 99% sure I was correct. That's why I was like wth? When he said I was wrong. I question some things about the class. There's a lot of stuff they don't mention and I feel he called some pictures incorrect colors. And he won't talk about brown for some reason.
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Some teachers are just rediculous! I had a teacher tell me once that cremello was deadly and that the AQHA didnt register them. He also expected me to be suprised that greys arent born grey *eyeroll*

See, that would bother me to no end. I'm in the process of learning colors and gentics too. It only makes it that much more confusing when you have a professor like that, then you question youself and I definitley know how you feel. Brown, brown, brown, lol.

Bases are black and red, then there are modifiers and so on including brown. Still though, if he is your professor he should be going over it and not avoiding material.

I find myself having to bite my tongue a lot.
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"Ink spots" is another term for it. And he is wrong - you cannot tell zygousity of tobiano by looking at the pattern. Yes, ink spots do seem to appear more often on homozygous horses, but they are not on all of them (not even on the majority), and they can be found on heterozygous horses too.

Precisely. When my aunt first got together with her now-ex-boyfriend who bred Paints, he told her that "bear paw markings" were how you told if a horse was homozygous.
Then when he had a fellow horseperson over one day, she was showing off one of the mares they had and telling him she was homozygous because she had these spots. One look at her pedigree and he knew this was wrong as the mare's sire was a solid Quarter Horse with no specific Paint lineage.

Save me Chiilaa! It hurts to go to that class! XD

Things like when we talked about Champagne...he put up an American Cream Draft picture and I could tell everyone was like "um...how is this any different from a palomino?" He never mentioned anything about mottled skin which is a big giveaway and would clear a lot of things up for the less educated people.

At least though...THANK GOD he keeps repeating that there are no Albino horses. People even keep asking, like dominant white for example, "so...is THIS one an albino then?" He just got done telling you there are none! ARG.

And a side question...is homozygous dominant white lethal? <.<