The widows peak is expressed, only sometimes since it is recessive , when breeding two dogs with the recessive Black and Tan gene.
Whether they be of the same breed or ‘purebred’
Those dogs in turn if tightened up on ‘could’ produce Black and Tans.
From then on out Black and Tan may become the dominant color.
I believe this is proof of the terrier blood in the catahoula by way of the pitbull
Back in the 1970’s there was a breeder advertising Black and Tan APBT’s in one of the hunting magazines…it seems he advertised quite a few years…
Years ago it was common to read similar articles by different writers but don’t see them anymore…it was written that the English bulldog, which was used for pit fighting and bull fighting in those days, was bred to a Black and Tan terrier and the results were a better fighting dog…I believe the Staffordshire terrier and APBT are a spin off of those initial breedings…also, the English bulldog of those times resembled the APBT’s of today more than the English bulldog of today…
Back in England and Scotland, the terriers were well known for their fierce temperaments towards game…I do not know all the Black and Tan terriers of those days…there was one that was called the Black and Tan terrier…that is the one they used to cross with the bulldog…
This terrier I believe was used to develop many terriers directly and indirectly such as the Lakeland, Welsch, Airedale…
In breeding for a certain dominant dog color, there can be a recessive color gene hidden that when paired together will produce the recessive color…it can take a while to minimize the production of that color…
When breeding two dogs displaying the same recessive color then it is a guarantee that each dog (sire and dam) are carrying two sets of the recessive genes for color and can only produce that one color when bred together.
Sometimes, especially when outcrossing, we see two recessive colors of the same and when we make the cross…the colors in the offspring are not what we expected…I made this cross with 2 yellow dogs and had 10 brindle pups with all having different shades of yellow brindle…it turns out one of the yellow dogs was a brindle but the brindle could not be seen with the naked eye…
