Recessive black

There is a colour known as 'recessive black'. While a solid colour, it actually belongs on the same locus as sables, tanpoints and grizzles. Normally, black is a very dominant pattern, but there is also a recessive form of it. Recessive black is, overall, fairly unusual in the dog world. It is however seen in mainly some pastoral breeds, such as the german shepherd, shetland sheepdog or puli. This kind of black looks no different from the 'normal' dominant black, though it is inherited differently.

Black and white shetland sheepdogs exhibit the recessive form of black