As a dog ages, it’s normal for his coat to change color somewhat. A dog’s fur may change for a number of reasons: with ageing, with exposure to sunlight, with shaving, and when thyroid levels are low.

It’s unlikely that you’ll notice too much of a color change in your dog’s coat, though. It might simply be that you notice a pic of your dog as a pup and realize how much bolder or more defined his color looked back then. It’s never normally a case of an overnight color change or dramatic proportions.

We say “never normally”, because every so often, a dog defies the odds in the most interesting and unique of ways. A dog that did just that this year is Blaze.

Blaze was formerly a black lab – which meant he looked how a black lab was meant to look. His fur was glossy and dark. For 10 years, that’s how it remained.

And then Blaze’s fur began to turn white around his muzzle.

This is actually pretty common with old dogs. Their faces tend to be the area of the body that picks up the white or light gray hairs, which is more obvious on dogs that have dark fur to begin with.

However, the white didn’t just stop at Blaze’s face. It began to spread to his ears and the back of his head. Blaze was showing physical signs of ageing that are rarely so prominent on a dog.

The white patches moved beyond his head and started to spread to other parts of Blaze’s body. His shoulders and legs took on white parts, and then his chest and his back. Blaze was beginning to look like a dalmatian-cross!

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At first, Blaze’s owners had thought that he was turning white with age, but now they began to reconsider. Surely the color change wouldn’t be quite so obvious if age was the cause.

And then they discovered the truth: Blaze has vitiligo.

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Vitiligo is a fancy way of describing what happens when the skin loses its pigmentation. Vitiligo can affect human’s too – Canadian fashion model Winnie Harlow is perhaps one of the most famous people with vitiligo to this day.

When a dog’s skin loses pigmentation with this condition, his fur also does the same – which explained why Blaze’s fur had turned from black to white.

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In some cases, vitiligo can cause side effects like autoimmune disorders, arthritis and diabetes. But luckily, Blaze appeared to be in good health. They got him checked out at the vets, who said he was fine, if not a little different in appearance!

His condition has made Blaze uniquely handsome, and has caught the attention of thousands of people on the internet.

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Blaze now has his own dedicated Instagram account, where he currently has nearly 10,000 followers. People can’t get enough of the adorable photos of this black lab’s new color. And it definitely helps that Blaze is clearly a born model.

Blaze’s family adore his new look. Little Punto, the other family dog and Blaze’s best friend, doesn’t care that he’s looking different these days. And why would they? Black or white, Blaze is adorable.

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If you’ve fallen in love with Blaze like we have, you can check out more photos of him doing his thing on his Instagram account.

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Source: Animal Channel, The Dodo, Mayo Clinic, Blazethedog__ via Instagram