Have you ever seen a green-colored dog before or thought they even existed? Well, it seems they do.
Sardinian dog owners got a surprise when a new litter of puppies was born and one of them had green fur.
No bets on the name though of course; they called him Pistachio, their little star.
Farmer Cristian Mallocci couldn’t believe his eyes when Spelacchia (Italian for “mangy”), one of his eight farm dogs, gave birth to a tiny green puppy on Oct. 9.
There’s no doubt that Pistachio is the special one out of his four brothers and sisters, who were all born with white fur, the same color as their mixed-breed mom.
It is extremely rare for a dog to be born with green-colored fur. It is thought that it happens when pale-colored puppies have contact in the womb with a green pigment called biliverdin, which dyes their hair while in their mother’s tummy.
Biliverdin is the same pigment that causes the green color in bruises.
Pistachio was bright green on the day of his birth, but the color has slowly faded day by day and will continue to do so as he gets older.
Mallocci owns his farm in Pattada, a small village on the Italian island of Sardinia, with his brother-in-law Giannangelo Liperi.
While his brothers and sisters will be given away to new homes when they’re old enough to separate from their mother, the owners will keep Pistachio on their farm and train him up to look after the sheep with his mother.
Mallocci said that during these tough times of the coronavirus pandemic, green is the symbol of hope and luck, so maybe it was meant to be that Pistachio could put a smile on people’s faces.
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