Meet 5 Puppies Who Were Born With Completely Green Fur

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. The Chicago River looks like the Nickelodeon studio in the early aughts after a SlimeFest, the Shamrock Shake is back at McDonald’s, and my mom is probably planning to dye my nephew’s milk green with food coloring like she did for me when I was a kid. (I was delighted by the practice then, but now the idea of it puts me off my lunch).

In an effort to celebrate the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland, I would like to talk about a green thing that is not a dairy product or body of water: green dogs. You heard me right, and no I haven’t confused this holiday with 420 and am not hallucinating. Sometimes, dogs are born green.

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In November, I wrote about a Mississippi-born American Pit Bull Terrier named Pearl who was born looking like one of Shrek’s progeny (a high compliment, to be clear). In it, I waxed poetic about Joni Mitchell for far too long; it’s fine, I was depressed at the time. But when I actually got to the point, I reported that Pearl had been born with a pigment on her coat called biliverdin. This pigment is the result of the breakdown of hemoglobin or  other heme proteins that can show up in amniotic fluid and stain a lighter-colored dog’s fur green. (Usually, it tends to affect only one or two pups within a litter.)

OK, that’s kind of cute, but is it harmful?

Veterinarian Dr. Amy Fox assures me that if a pup is born looking like a little frog, there is no reason to be concerned.

“Biliverdin is a normal breakdown product of heme, a component of red blood cells, and may be present in utero,” she says. “Usually it is present in very small amounts so a pet parent would never even know it's there. In rare cases, if there is enough biliverdin present, it may stain a puppy's fur at birth. However, it will quickly fade over time as the mom cleans the puppy, and it rubs off.”

OK, so it’s not a big deal and has no effect on their health. Plus, it fades away (sad!). So, that makes it even more important that I tell you about a few dogs who have been born sporting that fleeting shade of green.

The jade-toned Spanish twins

In 2014, a dog gave birth to a litter that included not one but two puppies with bright-green coats. “I thought the puppies were dirty and tried to clean them, but the color wouldn’t come off,” their breeder, Aida Vallelado Molina, told The Independent at the time. ”I couldn’t believe it when I first saw them,” Their names were not reported at the time, but the newspaper did mention a Yellow Lab born green who was appropriately named Hulk.

Forest, the Scottish emerald

In 2017, a dog named Rio, who lives in the Scottish Highlands, had a puppy aptly named Forest who was born with a green tint to his coat. “It was all hands on deck, but then as the puppies started to arrive,” Rio’s mom, Louise Sutherland, told the Daily Mail. “We noticed that one of the puppies had green fur! We couldn’t believe it.”

Pistachio, the little Italian cannoli

In 2020, Italian farmer Cristian Mallocci reported that his dog had given birth to a litter, one of whom was mint green. Obviously, he named him Pistachio. At the time, the BBC reported that green is the color of hope, which, of course, we all could have used back then (and now even more, if I’m being real).

Shamrock, the Floridian good-luck charm

Last March, a breeder in Pensacola, Florida, welcomed a litter that included one little pup with the biliverdin pigment. Her dad, Mike Burr, said her color is what made her notice her out of the rest of the pack. Then, when he got to know her personality, he was smitten.

“Well, first of all, she was different, obviously,” Burr told People. “But when I picked her up and held her, and she kind of looked at me and licked me in the face, and I don’t know, I even told my wife, I said, I don’t know, there was something about the look that said, ‘Yep, this is the one.’”

What about when biliverdin shows up in other places, like a dog’s pee?

Yeah, you read that right. Green pee. The Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) published a study in February about dogs who have a rare metabolic disorder called hereditary biliverdinuria. This is incredibly rare and usually seen in humans (and only a few at that), so CVM only had two dogs to work with in their research.

Green urine is caused by defects in a gene called BLVRA. BLVRA tells the body to make an enzyme called biliverdin reductase A, per CVM. This enzyme breaks down old red blood cells by converting the green biliverdin into bilirubin, which is yellow, aka the color of regular pee. But if that enzyme is not broken down properly, this can lead to a buildup of biliverdin, which causes someone (human or animal) to pee green. In the case of these dogs, this condition did not “seem to cause major disease.” Again, though, they only studied two pups.

Dr. Fox weighs in: “There are other reasons a dog may have green urine as well including toxins, medications, and/or certain types of infections. To my knowledge, biliverdinuria has only been reported in a handful of dogs and is extremely rare. It is also not known if this would affect their overall health in any significant way. The good news is that it is not a problem pet parents are likely to ever encounter.”

Well, that’s a relief. Because as cool as it would be to encounter a *Derry Girls voice* wee green pup, the idea of watching your dog excrete martian-green urine is not so fun.

If you were planning to head to McDonald’s for your annual St. Patrick’s Day treat, and I’ve just completely ruined your plan by talking about urine, I’m sorry. Maybe I can get my mom to whip you up a nice glass of green milk instead. Sláinte!