CSS :hover Selector not working as expected with gifs - css

Question

I am working on a new button styles and currently facing a challenge: my <button> CSS :hover selector is not behaving as expected.
All attempts to making it work have proven futile.
How can I possibly achieve that effectively?
Below is my code:
.button_depression {
background: url(http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9atx55D6F1qd1e6no1_400.gif)
no-repeat;
border: 0;
color: #ffffff;
padding: 5px 35px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
font-size: 20px;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 5px;
font-family: Times New Roman;
transition-duration: 0.5s;
}
.button_depression:hover {
background-color: #959595;
}

Answer 1

Simply use background for your hover; not background-color as illustrated in the snippet below:
.button_depression:hover {
background: #959595;
}
Brief summary:
background CSS property is a shorthand to set the values for one or more of: background-clip, background-color, background-image, background-origin, background-position, background-repeat, background-size, and background-attachment.
When working without the shorthand, the background-image property supersedes background-color and as such, setting background-color alone without abnegating it (background-image) will result in its precedence.
In other words, background-image: none; in combination with background-color: #959595; will work. (Refer to snippet below)
.button_depression:hover {
background-color: #959595;
background-image: none;
}
(background-image: unset; works well too, but can't tell if supported by all browsers)
Note that you can be achieved the same, using the background shorthand, simply as above, with background: #959595; (which I prefer: simple, less verbose, same result).
More details here ....

Answer 2

You can't see the button hover changing the background color due to the background image. You can set the button image to None on hover and then change the color. This might be what you want. Alternatively you can just set background to the background color you wanted. Your preference how you want to acomplish this.
.button_depression {
background: url(http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9atx55D6F1qd1e6no1_400.gif) no-repeat;
border: 0px;
color: #ffffff;
padding: 5px 35px;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: none;
display: inline-block;
font-size: 20px;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 5px;
font-family: Times New Roman;
transition-duration: 0.5s;
}
.button_depression:hover {
background: None;
background-color: #959595;
}