The Hovawart exists in three approved colors - blond, black with gold (abbreviated as bwg) and black.

The colors you can expect for the puppies are presented here in a simple way. This is of course not 100% science.  Nature also acts in it own way.

If you mate two blond dogs; you can only get blond puppies because blond is a recessive color.

If you mate bwg with bwg the puppies can be both blond and bwg. The tendency of bwg is dominant over the blond, but if both of the parents have a recessive tendency of blond it can occur. In this color combination you cannot get a black dog. It has happened that black offspring have been registered from two parental dogs with bwg color, but the puppies have as adults developed bwg color even if it only has shown with a few brown hairs beneath the tail.

If you mate a blond with bwg or black you can get all the color variations. It is the same if you mate a black with black or black with bwg.

A few exceptions may exist.

What you call pure inheritance black, i.e. a bwg without blond tendency does exist. A few of our dogs have this tendency; for example Beppo von Justehof, G. Kax and G. Ärvin. They don't give any blond puppies even if they have mated with blond females several times.

We also have the variant of blond dogs without tendency for color. An example of this is G. Stand By Me. He has mated with a bwg female with only black puppies. The second time he mated with a bwg female the puppies were either blond or black. Both these females have had puppies in other litters with bwg colors. Spencer has therefore only the tendency for one colored dogs.

The tendency for colors comes in pairs. If the puppy has a tail spot it also has brown on the legs. If the chest spots shows; the brown bib also shows. If there are brown hair on the chin,  there are brown eyebrows. Many Hovawarts have only brown on the legs and under the tail but nothing else. Some have all the colors but nothing on the head.

The difference from for example the Rottweiler, which is always born with big markings, the bigger the better; is that age has a tendency to shrink the colors. The hovawart has the opposite tendency; they are often born with small colors and the color grows with age. The colors must however be there at birth to grow. If the puppies don't have any tendency for chin spots or eyebrows at birth; you may wait for these in vain. Below is three pictures of the same dog taken at three different occasions in life; at 7 weeks, 18 month and 3 years. Pretty remarkable to see how elegant colors can be developed in a couple of years!

Now for the explanation of the haphazard nature in form of Chefka von der Reustad. She was a bwg colored female with a blond mother and a black father. For that reason she had a tendency for blond. She was mated three times with different males each time, all bwg colored. One of the males had given blond puppies before. She had big litters and gave birth to 35 puppies, 33 lived, all bwg. We waited in vain for a blonde from her.

I shall also tell a little about the occurrences of incorrectly colored dogs for this breed in form of blue in all three colors. Some have been born in Sweden but not many. These pictures are from a German breed book.