Furnishings in Dogs: The Gene Behind Beards and Eyebrows

Furnishings are the longer hair on a dog's muzzle and above its eyes: the beard, moustache and eyebrows of Schnauzers, wire-haired terriers, Poodles and most doodles. They come from a single gene, RSPO2. One copy of the furnished version is enough to show, so a dog either has furnishings or has no copies at all. The same gene is also linked to how much a dog sheds.

The short version

• One gene: furnishings come from an insertion in the RSPO2 gene.
• One copy is enough: the furnished version is dominant.
• Wire-haired breeds all have it, and Poodles and Bichons Frisés carry two copies.
• It's linked to lower shedding, which is part of why doodles are popular.
• No copies means no furnishings, which in doodles is called an improper coat.
• It's a newer version of the gene. The non-furnished version is the original, the one grey wolves carry.

What furnishings look like

A furnished dog has noticeably longer hair on its face than its body: a beard and moustache around the muzzle and bushy eyebrows over the eyes. On a short coat, furnishings give the wiry look of a Schnauzer or an Airedale. On a long coat, they give the soft, teddy-bear look of a Poodle cross. A study of more than 1,000 dogs from 80 breeds found exactly that: dogs with both the long-coat variant and furnishings have long, soft coats rather than wiry ones.

The gene: RSPO2

That same study traced furnishings to a 167-base-pair insertion in the RSPO2 gene. It first mapped the trait in Dachshunds, which come in wire-haired, smooth and long-haired varieties, and then confirmed it across breeds:

• 297 of 298 dogs with furnishings carried at least one copy of the insertion.
• All 406 dogs without furnishings carried none.

That pattern is what a dominant trait looks like: one copy is enough to show it. None of the coat variants in the study turned up in the grey wolves it tested, so the non-furnished version is the original and the furnished version is the newer one.

How furnishings are inherited

Because one copy is enough, a puppy's chance of having furnishings depends on how many copies each parent carries:

Two furnished parents can still have an unfurnished puppy if both carry one hidden non-furnished copy. In doodles, that puppy is said to have an improper coat, and our guide to doodle generations shows how often it happens in each kind of litter.

Which breeds have furnishings

• Wire-haired breeds: every wire-haired breed in the 2009 study carried the furnishings insertion. That includes breeds such as Schnauzers, wire-haired terriers and the Wire-haired Dachshund.
• Poodles and Bichons Frisés: a 2016 study of more than 4,200 dogs found these minimal-shedding breeds carry two copies of the furnished version.
• Doodles: most get their furnishings from the Poodle side, which is why a typical first-generation doodle is furnished.

Breeds without beards and eyebrows, including many retrievers and spaniels, carry no furnishings copies. Smooth, short-coated breeds carry none of the three main coat variants at all, the 2009 study found.

Furnishings and shedding

Furnishings aren't just about looks. The 2016 study linked shedding to two genes, RSPO2 and a second gene, MC5R, and found that minimal-shedding breeds carry two copies of the furnished version. That's a big reason furnished doodles usually shed less than their retriever parent. Our guide to the genetics of shedding covers the rest of the story, including why low shedding isn't the same as hypoallergenic.

How a DNA report shows furnishings

The PuppyGenes physical appearance section includes a furnishings prediction based on RSPO2, with its own confidence. In our public example reports, both Juno and Marley are predicted to be "likely furnished (moustache, beard and/or eyebrows)": Juno at low confidence and Marley at medium. A low-confidence result is a tentative prediction, so if the dog in front of you clearly has, or lacks, a beard and eyebrows, trust what you see. Our guide to curly coats covers the gene that often appears alongside furnishings.