Guide
American Bully Colors
Every color the breed comes in, what the fashionable ones actually are genetically, which carry health risk, and why none of them change my price.
The American Bully comes in essentially every color, and color is one of the few things the breed standard is genuinely relaxed about. Blue, tri, champagne and lilac are dilutions and combinations rather than separate breeds, and the premiums attached to them are a market phenomenon rather than a reflection of anything about the dog. Every puppy here’s $700 regardless of color.
The common ones
| Color | What it’s | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Black | Full pigment, no dilution | The baseline. Nothing unusual about it |
| Blue | Diluted black, a gray-slate coat with gray nose and lighter eyes | The single most marketed color. Carries a dilution-linked coat condition risk, below |
| Fawn | Ranging from cream to deep red | Common and unremarkable |
| Champagne | Diluted fawn, pale gold with a lighter nose | Same dilution gene as blue, applied to a red base |
| Chocolate | Brown pigment throughout, including the nose | Distinct from a black dog with brown shading |
| Lilac | Chocolate plus the dilution, a pale gray-brown with light eyes | Needs both recessives, so it’s genuinely less common |
| Tri color | Any base color plus tan points plus white markings | The tan-point pattern was always in the gene pool; it became fashionable recently |
| Brindle | Dark striping over a lighter base | Old, common, and currently unfashionable, which makes it good value |
| Piebald or pied | Large white patches on a colored base | Cosmetic. Extensive white around the ears can carry deafness risk in dogs generally |
Color is the last thing I select on and it makes no difference at all to the price. Every puppy here’s $700, blue, tri, black or anything else.
Two things worth knowing before you pay a premium
Color dilution alopecia
The gene that makes a black dog blue and a red dog champagne is the same one, and it carries a known association with a coat condition: the hair in the diluted areas can become brittle and thin, sometimes with recurring skin infections in the affected patches. It usually appears between six months and three years. It isn’t painful and it isn’t dangerous, but it’s permanent and it needs managing.
It doesn’t happen to every blue dog, or even most, and plenty live entire lives with perfect coats. It happens only in diluted dogs, which means it’s a risk attached specifically to the colors that command the highest premiums. That’s worth knowing when somebody quotes you three thousand dollars for blue.
Merle
Merle is a mottled, patchy pattern, often with blue eyes, and it commands the largest premiums of anything in the breed. It also carries the most serious risk, and I want to be direct about it.
A dog with one copy of the merle gene is generally healthy. A dog with two copies, which happens when two merles are bred together, is at high risk of being deaf, blind or both, and the association between double merle and serious defects of the eye and ear is well established across many breeds. This isn’t a fringe concern and it isn’t disputed.
The line that matters isn’t whether a dog is merle. It’s whether both of its parents were. A single-merle puppy from one merle parent and one non-merle parent carries none of that elevated risk and is an ordinary, healthy dog. A puppy from two merle parents is the one at risk, and there’s no way to tell by looking at the puppy which of those two it is.
So it is worth asking, here included. Was the sire merle, and was the dam merle? Two merle parents can produce a double merle, which carries a real risk of deafness and blindness, and it is the one colour question with a welfare answer behind it rather than a cosmetic one. Mine come from single-merle pairings and I will tell you the merle status of both parents without being asked twice.
I’ll tell you what both parents of any puppy here are, merle or otherwise, and I will tell you before you ask if merle is the one you’re looking at.
Why the premiums exist at all
Because they can. There’s no relationship between coat color and temperament, structure, health at birth or how long the dog lives. A blue XL and a brindle XL from the same litter are the same dog wearing different coats, and one of them costs three times as much because of what’s fashionable this year.
Fashion moves. Brindle was sought after, then it wasn’t. Tri color was ordinary, then it was expensive. If you’re choosing a dog to live with for twelve years, the color is the least consequential decision in front of you and the temperament of the individual puppy is the most consequential.
My position is the simple one: every puppy here’s $700, whatever the color and whatever the class. No premium for blue, no premium for tri, no premium for anything. Why the price is what it is.
What is available now
The colors in the current group are on the availability page with a photograph of each puppy. If you’ve a preference, say so when you write and I’ll tell you honestly what’s there rather than what’s nearly there.
A suggestion, offered as somebody who has watched people choose for years. Pick the puppy on temperament and on what I tell you about how it behaves with the others, and take the color it happens to be. People who choose that way are more often happy at two years old than people who chose a color.
Ten puppies, every color, every one $700
Ask which one would suit your household and you’ll get an answer about the dog rather than about the coat.