What Will They Think Of Next?

[Mystiqview]

Dju,

The problem with merle, is when you mate merle to merle together you run the possibility of deaf/blind puppies. It is to do with this gene. Merle is also a dominant gene.

When you mate merle to ee-red. the red will mask the merle so you cannot see it. Here lies the problem. There seems to be a growing fad in the breed to mate ee-red to merle.

By doing this, if the merle carries ee-red and there are ee-red puppies in the litter, it is possible they are genetically merle. Short of a DNA colour test, you would never know. What you would have to do to be "safe" would be to consider any red pup in a litter as merle so you don't accidently breed it to another merle.

Unfortunately merle does not always show completely as a merle dog. It may look a solid colour and only have a small patch of merling on the tall for instance as a pup, then will not necessarily show as an adult

Also unfortunately, some of these new "breeders" do not understand even the most basic genetics, or what they are playing with. This generation may be fine, but the generations that follow may have problems due to the same ignorance and misunderstanding that bred these dogs in the first place. There are reasons why ethical breeders choose not to play with some combinations and colours. Breeders are caretakers of the breed and if things are done wrong at some point, it can take many generations to fix that wrong.

[Dju]

Dju,

The problem with merle, is when you mate merle to merle together you run the possibility of deaf/blind puppies. It is to do with this gene. Merle is also a dominant gene.

When you mate merle to ee-red. the red will mask the merle so you cannot see it. Here lies the problem. There seems to be a growing fad in the breed to mate ee-red to merle.

By doing this, if the merle carries ee-red and there are ee-red puppies in the litter, it is possible they are genetically merle. Short of a DNA colour test, you would never know. What you would have to do to be "safe" would be to consider any red pup in a litter as merle so you don't accidently breed it to another merle.

Unfortunately merle does not always show completely as a merle dog. It may look a solid colour and only have a small patch of merling on the tall for instance as a pup, then will not necessarily show as an adult

Also unfortunately, some of these new "breeders" do not understand even the most basic genetics, or what they are playing with. This generation may be fine, but the generations that follow may have problems due to the same ignorance and misunderstanding that bred these dogs in the first place. There are reasons why ethical breeders choose not to play with some combinations and colours. Breeders are caretakers of the breed and if things are done wrong at some point, it can take many generations to fix that wrong.

Ahhh, alright! I never thought such a thing like that existed! Thank you for telling me :D One of my favorite breeds is the Aussie Shep (especially red merle, I think some of them are quite beautiful), and it's useful to know this advice if I ever get one in the future.

[Aussienot]

If you mate a smoking dog with one of those "pure bread" ones, do you get toast? Just wondering . . .

Edited September 19, 2010 by Aussienot

[Mystiqview]

Raisin toast!!

[Steve]

Why on earth would anyone put non smoking in an ad for a puppy?

Gad I'm must be getting old.