Reverse brindle is a term describing a pattern of brindle wherein dog appears mostly black with lighter stripes. Oftentimes this term is used to describe regular brindle colored dogs in lighter shades which is incorrect.
First, let’s shortly explain what brindle pattern is. It’s not a color itself but a pattern in form of black stripes appearing over the base fawn color. Base color is made out of pheomelanin: fawn, and can be controlled by intensity locus – this is why we have so many different shades of “brindle” with base varying from very light, pale fawns and sandy colors through yellows, to more intense reds. Stripes are made from eumelanin (black pigment).
If you would like to imagine how brindle is made, picture a dog who is fawn and wears on top of the fawn base, layer of black stripes (base is always fawn and stripes are always black*).
*eumenlanin can be affected by liver (so called red nose Presa – nose and stripes are red) and dilution (blue – nose and stripes are blue). Both colors are out of standard and not typical for Presa Canario, but in rare occasions were observed in the breed.
Brindle is dominant – meaning you need just one brindle parent to have brindle puppies. Two fawn dogs will never produce brindle puppies. Many black Presas are genetically brindle, but black coat being dominant over brindle makes the dog black while still allowing to produce brindle.
Knowing this you know that BRINDLE happens when the dog is FAWN and on top of the fawn base you see BLACK STRIPES.
REVERSE BRINDLE is nothing else than, a dog who has a FAWN BASE and the BLACK STRIPES but the black stripes are so thick and dense they cover the fawn base making the dog look almost black. The cracks between black stripes are so scarce, showing very little of base fawn color it makes it look as if the golden colors make the brindling.
This is why we call it REVERSE BRINDLE because opposed to most common brindle pattern, it looks reversed as if the dog was black and stripes golden. Remember it’s just the optical illusion and dog is still fawn with brindle stripes.
In few popular breeds reverse brindle dogs are so common they simply call them brindles, and i they happen to have typical brindle pattern they started calling it reverse. It’s incorrect but made it’s way to general public and unfortunately people refer to light brindle Presas with very little stripes showing as reverse brindles.
Below are examples of reverse brindle Presa Canarios:
