Puppy Coat

[Kyles mom]

We have a 3 month old Cairn puppy. We've had Jack Russells but he's our first Cairn. His puppy fur looks transparent with some color on the ends. Will this change? 

[bradl]

Welcome.

Pluck a hair or two and examine it under light. If it's transparent down to the root, with the color just at the tips, it's puppy fluff (dead coat) that can be pulled out to let a fresh new coat come in.  We normally stripped puppies of their puppy fluff around 10 weeks or so (whenever it seemed like it would come out easily)  before they left home. Some folks felt they had asked for a Cairn and gotten a cat  It grows fast enough that before they knew it they had a yak  

Cairns with brindling often (I would say usually) tend to change coat color over the years, trending darker as the blacker coat comes to predominate . We've had a red brindle pup end up later in life as near to black as made no difference (still had a reddish undercoat). However dead coat is usually colorless or dull (and often  thin and sometimes crinkly) at the root regardless of overall color, and that's a different thing altogether.

[Kathryn]

I always had a hard time pulling out that puppy fluff because I think they look so cute!