Pistacchio was born with a green coat, while his 4 siblings have the coat color white like his mother.
As a herding shepherd, Cristian Mallocci, who lives in Sardinia, Italy, is probably used to the occasional appearance of strange black sheep in his flock.
But welcoming a blue dog was completely unexpected, never before.
Earlier this month, Cristian Mallocci’s Spelacchia gave birth to a litter of five puppies, four of which are white like their mother and one with a distinctive green coat.
The 4 whites were adopted by other families, while the Pistacchio green will remain with the Mallocci family.
Cristian Mallocci said: “We will keep the dog green. He was born in difficult times but I hope he will be very lucky.”
Dogs born green are extremely rare, but there have been similar incidents around the world before.
In January, a white German Shepherd dog living on a farm in North Carolina, United States, gave birth to unusually colored puppies. Its owner later named the special dog the Hulk.
In 2017, a Golden Retriever from Scotland also gave birth to puppies with strange coat colors.
The rare phenomenon occurs when puppies with light hair are exposed to biliverdin, a blue pigment found in the bile.
It is the pigment that causes blues to turn green. Basically, their fur is dyed in the womb and its color is likely to fade over time.
Cristian Mallocci took the green-haired bitch to the vet for a check-up and learned that during pregnancy biliverdin, a substance found in the leaking bile, mixed with amniotic fluid, gave the bitch an unusual coat.
