Colors Of Wire Fox Terriers

A: The only color that its Breed Standard says that the Wire MUST have is white. The Standard further says that the Wire SHOULD be (not MUST be) at least 50% white. An all white Wire is perfectly acceptable.
In addition to white, the colors black and brown or ginger occur. A black, brown, and white Wire is commonly call called "a tri" or referred to as a tri-colored Wire.
The color ginger has a little more red to it than plain brown. A"ginger" Wire has no black-. It is only white and ginger.

Newly born pups that are tri’s have black heads, with perhaps a little brown on their cheeks and eyebrows. When they lose their puppy hair, their heads turn brown. Newly born ginger pups have ginger heads. Deeply colored gingers may have black guard hairs at birth, but these are lost when the adult coat comes in. One can tell at birth whether a pup is a tri or a ginger (i.e.: unless the pup is all white).

Ideally, an adult, tri Wire has no brown within its black markings; however, usually a few brown hairs are present within the black, particularly at certain locations (i.e.: top of back, in front of the tail). In some cases, a tri Wire will have quite a bit of brown mixed within its
black markings. This is not desirable, and some may say the dog is "poorly colored."

The inheritance of the ginger color in Wires is termed "epistasis." If two tri’s are bred, only tri pups will result, even if both tri’s were themselves from ginger parents. At least one parent must be a ginger for ginger pups to result. Gingers can produce both tri’s and gingers. It should be emphasized that breeding a tri to a ginger cannot reduce the intensity of the tri color in the tri pups that result from such a mating because there is no in-between combination possible.

Pups’ tails are commonly docked by removing a quarter of the tails’ lengths. The lengths of tails on pups vary, so each should be individually measured before docking. Regardless, gingers’ tails should be docked a wee-bit longer (i.e., remove less than a fourth) than tri tails, because
tails of gingers don’t grow quite as much after docking as tails of tri’s.