N.Maslennikova
These are silver-black foxes.
The details of the appearance of such colors in captive foxes will be revealed to you by Maria Nikolaevna. Many years ago she already with her students and graduate students held this interesting work.
Very interesting and gives reasons for reflection.
Puppies spotted (piego) color were born in black foxes before. They were usually rejected.
But someone (see above and Prof. Belyaev) came to mind to see what would happen.
It turned out that these foxes are faster than their "standard" littermates get used to the person, are trained, become practically tame. They even try to bark.
On the other hand, when among the foxes of the standard color they began to select the quietest, most trusting in relation to the person, the most trained, etc., and then make up couples and get offspring, then
about the third generation they went to puppy .....
Ask Maria Nikolaevna if you do not believe.

Piebald color is one of the most noticeable domestication signs in many animals. Here. " For other colors - this rule does not work or does not work so clearly.
I remember very well that when we activated black litters in which there were puppies with the so-called. "Irish spotting" or abstracts, it was these puppies who always fled to meet us first, first climbed into their hands and froze with happiness when they stroked.
With "phantoms" I have fewer contacts. But comparison with abstracts is not in their favor. In any case, for my taste.

M.Sotskaya

What about foxes is not quite so. Nina Alexandrovna's photographs depict the so-called white-fronted and platinum foxes. The inheritance of these colors is similar to the marble color of dogs. By the nature of their behavior, they are in no way distinguishable from the common fur-farmed foxes.
In the known experiments on domestication conducted in Novosibirsk there was an artificial selection of foxes for a calm attitude to man and tameability. This selection was conducted among the usual silvery blacks. When about 10 years later a population of so-called "manual" foxes was created,
among them began to appear individual individuals with so-called domestication changes. Among these changes were ears, tail bends on the back and white marks at the primary depigmentation points.
And it could not be said that the owners of white spots are more tame than monotonous animals. I know all this, what is called first-hand. I studied the rationality of these foxes, which was part of my dissertation. More details about this experiment can be found in ours with Natalia Moskovkin's books "Genetics and hereditary diseases", as well as "Pedigree dog breeding." Enough many mentions about this experiment can be found on the Internet.

N. Maslennikova: MNS, well, they spoiled the tale!

M.Sotskaya: Yes, John came and all messed up. Nothing, but because there will now be a strong opinion that poodles harlequin color differ from others in nature!

Undoubtedly, the character of a dog depends on its color. The psyche of dogs of one color is more stable, the other less. You can find a lot of features of behavior in dogs of each color. There's nothing to argue about!
And as you rightly noted, much depends on the founder of the population. I think that in every color there is Vinni, the only question is how big his contribution to the breed is and how many such Vinnie she was present! But in this case it was not entirely about this. To argue that the harlequins are the most contact and tame and that it is connected with spotting is at least premature! In the end, all these qualities are generally characteristic of poodles in general, and instances such as Winnie and the like are anomalies. But for English cocks it's almost normal!

Tamara, domestication changes appeared only in foxes, which were selected for taming. This stimulated a change in the hormonal background, which in turn contributed to the appearance of these changes, including spotting. Spotting in this case is a purely secondary phenomenon. The aggressive foxes did not have any domestic changes. And the white-faced and platinum foxes mentioned by Nina Aleksandrovna are very aggressive in general.

MNS, in fact, if my memory does not change, then in your experiments there was another pattern .... other domestication signs appeared besides pego color.

N. Maslennikova: Namely, in some descendants of foxes, selected according to the principle of trustfulness-tame-learning, the ears hang and the tail does not turn tail. Well, and perestroika in physiology, estrus, timing ...
Do I remember correctly?

M.Sotskaya: Nina Alexandrovna, for the beginning we will clarify. The experiments were not mine, but Academician DK Belyaev at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, and I only studied the mental activity of foxes. And about the manifestation of domestication signs, then you remember everything correctly.
'oley', Egor, Speaking about the fact that the behavior of dogs of different colors differs markedly,
I still did not express it correctly enough. Of course, the main thing is not in coloring as such, but in inherited behavioral features of individual producers who are the founders of the population. Because of the presence of such features, we can assert with certain certainty, for example, that at the moment in a certain city dogs of the same color are more nervous, the dogs of the other are more vicious, among the dogs of the third color, deaf are common, among the dogs, the fourth are blind and etc.. It is possible that after a few years these undesirable symptoms will dissolve safely in new blood and disappear. BUT in the minds of dog breeders there will be strong beliefs about the fact that: (dogs of the same color are more nervous, the dogs of the other are more vicious, among the dogs of the third color, the deaf are common, oh, among the dogs, the fourth are blind, etc.) And to convince them in the reverse is not possible!
Tamara, the inheritance of behavior is subject to the same patterns as the morphological features. Even individual behavioral signs due to one or two pairs of genes are described, and there are not so few of them! Basically, the same signs of behavior, as well as most of all the basic, are polygenic. In addition, behavioral symptoms determine a large latitude of the reaction rate.
Now about the connection of some genes that determine color with behavior. It is shown, for example, that red-colored animals are more prone to spontaneous hormonal bursts than others, in animals of weakened colors and in albinos, deafness is more often noted, etc. In general, the problems of inheritance of behavior of both animals and man are studied by such sciences as GENETICS of BEHAVIOR and PSYCHOLOGY and on this subject a lot of books and textbooks are written! They are easy to find on the Internet.