Gundy - when you breed merle to merle do you ever get dogs that look to you like double merles?

Can someone tell me what a double merle is?

Hi Tigerlily

We're waiting to see whether they are all like this or some look like 'normal' merles - maybe genetic testing will make this clear.

An 'obvious' double merle (means they have two copies of the merle gene) has lots of white, and patches of merle.

A dog only needs one copy of the merle gene to be merled (the other gene will be for solid colour) and traditionally in other breeds its been considered that breeding double merles was *bad* as colour in the skin has a role to play in transmission of information down nerves - so doubles with lots of white are more likely to be deaf, have strange eyes, possibly be blind.

But there are lots of Koolie breeders who don't seem to have these problems. Yet if you're breeding merles to merles you must get, over time, lots of doubles (it should be on average about a 1/4 or more). So something seems to be making a difference. And I'd really like to know what!

And of course, there are Koolies that go through rescue that are deaf, so the problem remains within the breed.

Libby

I think my dog Ellies dad must be double merle as he has lots of white and a wall eye, so does that mean that Ellie is a double merle, she has two wall eyes and white feet? I will try and put photos on when I can.
Thank you for helping me. I want to know as much as I can so one day I can breed good puppies.

Hey Kooliemum can you put a link to this, regarding the thinness of the tapetum in Merles it would be good to look it up for future recording.



No problems we were talking about pigment not hair colour.



I have always been under the impression that the blue eye in humans is a European influence, black or dark brown asian and green eyes Cletic

I could be wrong, maybe someone has a better slant on these colour influence origins.

I still believe that there is a Koolie eye colour that is influenced or effected by the merle gene and that this colour is no colour at all, but devoid of colour and in some cases the iris is very small which decrease the vision.



Did you mean say doubles with not much colour or lots of white are more likely to be deaf, have strange eyes, possibly be blind.
Or did you write it correctly.

I had a better look at Smith's mouth on the weekend with the help of Ron and it is solid brown with no pink.

I checked my girls and guy. Kelli = all brown, Libby = all black and Pheonix = pink with black spots everywhere

Ok I have another question to give to the panel.
In your opinion or if there is actual fact to prove it that would be nice.

You select your male and you select your female for mating, from which parent comes most of the traits, eaqualy from both majority from the male some from mum.
If so what is controled by the male and the female or both.
Which parent influences the sizes of the pups, (I have heard that pups will gow no bigger than their father, I have used some very tall males 57cm 60cm over my females 48cm 51cm and none of the pups have ever been bigger than dad but most are bigger than mum.)
structure of the body or head.
Colour.
Temperment.
Ability.
I suppose my question would be one for the breeders amongst us or the budding geneticists.
Of the litters we have raised I have always selected males to improve upon the female.
If my bitch is too full on or has a hard attitude I'll select a male who is a good steady worker with a great almost soft nature.
If she has a long coat, I'll select a male with a short coat and so on.
But it might not be the male who is having the greatest effect as much as my females have issues created by recessive genes and the males I select carry dominant genes to correct the problem.
Like Shorts coat are dominant to long coats.
Pricked ears are dominant to dropped ears.

Some feedback please.

Oh Silhouette sends her apoligies, she hasn't dropped off the planet just her phone, she will back with us soon.
I wonder if that is why we haven't heard from Koolarks

Well hurry back people this thread is just lacking without your imput.

i know with breeding cavies you only keep the best of the males in body size and shape, ears, eyes the females you kept for temperment plus looks as most of the time the sows were your show animals if she was quite and gentle then the pups were quite and gentle, you also picked the right sow to go to your boar if he was to long in the muzzle then you picked a sow that was to short in the muzzle that way you would end up with some pups that were still a little to long in the muzzle but not as bad as their sire and one or two with good muzzles just right and always one or two with mums really short muzzle so i think it's about 50-50 chance as to who the pups take after

Good one, he'll produce good healthy litters from your girls, when do you expect to breed.?



Hey Rachelle can you tell us the breeding of the girls
Have you had Pheonix's auto immune checked regarding his feet.?
Maybe that might help.

Kelli is a bit of a mystery bag. I was told she is Koolie x BC and Libby is from a litter out of Kelli and Tim (border x koolie, more bc than anything i think). I might have to look into something like that for Pheonix or just chop his legs off LOL

Tjukurpa

I don't know about dogs, but I do know that a human male cannot sire a daughter taller than himself, only sons, regardless of how tall the mother is. Don't ask me how I know this...I can't remember, but I swear it's true. lol.

I wish I could, but it was something Paul McGreevy talked about at the APDT conference a few years ago (and he *really* knows about dogs' eyes, as well as having a particular interest in Koolies and merles). I think the research that this comes from was on Dachshunds and is in German - I haven't been able to find a translation.

Yes, the blue eyes mutation would have occurred in Europe. I think the human blue eye is similar to the Koolie one - the gene just stops the other pigments developing.

I was under the impression that that was a typical merle blue eye - just an absense of colour over that particular bit, although there is also a gene that gives blue eyes in solid dogs - I've seen a pic of one solid Koolie with a blue eye. Even if the dog was a cryptic merle it would seem a bit weird to have a complete absense of pigment in an eye. I've read an article about it's complicated pattern of inheritence, but really didn't think it was that relevant to Koolies as we're not really concerned when they have blue eyes, however they get them.



Yes, I did mean lots of white - should have reread that - thanks.

I have read that in cats the temperament of the father has a bigger influence than anything else on how friendly kittens are - can't remember where but it was *good* research. It was a significantly bigger effect than how they were handled by ppl. I've heard ppl express similar opinions about dogs - about which parent it was safe to allow to have certain temp flaws as they wouldn't pass it to the puppies. Haven't heard of any research though, and I can't think how it would work.

I totally agree with breeding up. The only problem I could see would be that pups would still carry less desirable recessives waiting to pop up when they are bred or to be gradually distributed through the breed until eventually a dog carrying them is bred to someone distantly related and the pups end up with the characteristic. But if it's only ears or coats, it wouldn't be too big a deal, I guess.

I believe your correct it is a typical merle eye.
But the general public and some new breeders get confused over the terminology.
When refering to a blue eye they bunch every type of light colouring including merle effected eyes in to the discription a "blue eye dog".

What we need is a way to clearly define or recognise a merle eye compared to a natural blue eye.

And currently I see the only way to do this are through photos, display as many photos of koolies with blue eyes, merle effected or not and compare these with true blue eyes like those of the huskie.

Anything which allows us to understand the effects of the merle gene, on the koolie coat, pigment or physical issues needs to be recorded for future reference when we unravel the gene and all its impact.

It's not good to take anything for granted or ignore anything when it comes to the Koolie breed.

Going back to the merle thing - wouldn't it be necessary, in lines where there are no solid puppies produced, that some of the breeding dogs were double merles? From pics I've seen, these dogs don't look like glaringly obvious MM, which I think might back up the idea that there are MM that are not very white.



If merling is inhereted in simple punnet square style (I think this is right?),

when Mm and mm are bred you'd get on average 1/2 mm and 1/2 Mm

when Mm and Mm, about 1/4 MM, 1/4 mm and 1/2 Mm

when MM and mm, all the pups would be Mm

when MM and Mm, about 1/2 MM and 1/2 Mm

when MM and MM, all would be MM.

Think I've worked that out right.

Because the numbers don't seem right compared to what I know of breeders, I'm starting to wonder about other factors that might be reducing numbers of MMs born, like in-utero death or some other factors that might be reducing the numbers of MM conceptions - saw on TV recently that sperm are not as *competitive* as had heard previously and cooperate to get the most suitable to the egg. Have no evidence, it's just some ideas that have been floating round in my head for a while.

Would it be worthwhile setting up a database type thingy with photos of dogs and then listing attributes that we've been discussing ie pigment of coat, colour of eyes, whether the eyes are normal or not - especiall if blue, parents colouring (if known), pad colour, colour of roof of mouth and any other anomoly you can think of???

If you were doing a whole lot of photos at a meeting or such you would just use a whiteboard with dog's name on it for reference in the photo and could be wiped clean for next dog.

A bit anal but sometimes that's where my head goes!

I think that's what the founding members had in mind when they designed the registration form which does ask for lots of this info. It would be really interesting to be able to look at the data, although I don't know if I'd know what it all meant.

Personally I think anal is great! (when it comes to learning about dogs)

Actually just found a link with good photos and explanations of some of the eye problems http://www.lethalwhites.com/doublemerle.html - not pretty to look at some of these. Have to click on the link to Eye Photos.

Another link with explanations is http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/Genetics/Merle.html

Although I'm sure a lot of you already know this info - I'm learning!!

This is the link about the 'other' (not merle) blue eyes.

http://www.cardicommentary.de/genetics/gen.ofblueeyes.htm

It's written with a presumption that blue eyes on a solid dog are *bad* that I don't think applies to Koolies, but like you say, you can't know too much about anything when it comes to breeding decisions.

Bowlingsite also has an interesting article on genetics of size, although as Koolies have different ancestor breeds more consistent in size (she points out that Shelties have ancestor breeds of very different sizes) and also Koolie ppl aren't as concerned with size (within certain limits of course), maybe it's not such an issue. But I think it's interesting what she points out about the complexities of the inheritance.

http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/Genetics/GenSize.html

This is the inside of Wal's mouth - patches of mottled light and darker grey/black and some pink skin. Tongue pink. This pics not great - was difficult to take the picture without the camera or his mouth moving.
He's a Mm steeley coloured blue merle with Irish patterning, with a blue merle mum (not sure if she had white) and an Irish patterned black and white dad.

Don't remember what his mouth was like when he was younger. In general when he was younger his colour was much lighter.

i have these pic's of dogs eye colour
this first one is of Spencer as you can see it is a whitish colour not blue this is caused by the diluting gene the same one that changes the coat colour
the next one is a real blue eyed pup or as some people call them violet eyes

and the next dog is charly Quin's father his eyes are also diluted not blue

and then we have summa and her aunty brandy summa's eye's are what i would call yellow not light brown and her aunties eye's were blue/violet as a young pup then faded to a white colour but you can still see a hint of blue in them in the right light

brandy as a pup you can see the blue/ violet in her eyes

and last is Quin who has funny coloured eyes they have a ring of brown on the out side then it quickly fades to a light brown/yellow. i do believe that his eye colour has been affected by the diluting gene even tho it is not that whitish colour

Sorry to blow this one out of the water.
My husband is 167cm Hubby can be a mutant, this could be the answer.
My daughter is 174cm
That's a difference of 7cm
I am 168.5cm

There were five girls in my family and two boys all taller than my father 5 1/2 foot and my mum who is only 5 foot


Go panel, yeh for analytical, bring it on.

I like date bases, the one the club uses focuses on colour, size, ear, eye and ability.
It helps monitor the growth patterns or for want of a better term popularity of anyone colour, type, sex, trait, etc
We then transfer this information down to marketing where we then see if our general information to the public is having a positive or negative impact.
It was through information gathered from this data base that we were able to see the increase for solid coloured Koolie’s thanks to the clubs suggestions regarding safer breeding practices

It could be possible to include photos of eye and mouth colour, pigment distribution, feet type, nail growth, the list is endless.

But is comes down to what people are prepared to contribute, if it's too involved they just don't do it.
So a place like this where we can collect from people who wish to freely volunteer the information and others can freely access it is probably the best place.

It also proves we have nothing to hide, nohidden motives or agenda's which when we have tried to collect random information before selected folk have been suspicious of our motives.
So keeping it public is good.



Firstly you need to prove that no solid pups were born, just because a breeder says there were only four merle in this litter, it is possible that they dissposed of the solids before announcing or advertising their litter.
Some breeders do all sorts of silly things to avoid hurting their reputation,or loosing a sale or some other silly thing they fell they must protect.

Secondly there are many MM Koolies which are not indicative or what you may have come to expect.
I have seen a few Koolies which are very strongly coloured yet have been suspected of being MM due to the results of their influences on litters which have prpoduced white blind/deaf pups .
I owned a male which to all visual evidence was a good candidate for mating.
Before the days of genetics, after three matings to eaqualy strong coloured females who had previously not born white deaf/blind pups he was put over a solid and no problems, not conclusive evindence but enough.
He was desexed suspected of Double merle influence, we have his DNA on file and it will be tested with the merle test to confirm our suspicsions.

So testing for the merle gene is very important and recording any anomalies is also handy as it prepares us for opportunits genetics will offer us in the near future.

With breeding to a strong male dog with good attributes, I know in the horse world they look at the stallion more than the mare. Tink was an excellent brood mare because her foals all leaned toward the stallions genes and very little of hers. So this is probably also with the males in the dog world.

It is true about the blue eyes in human, it was an awry gene that did it. One person came out with blue eyes and the reason it spread, it was thought as an exotic colour and very desirable amongst the opposite sex.

Ceejays eyes are what I call a caramel colour and they reflect red. Compared to Izzy (not koolie) which are dark brown and reflect blue. Can someone explain about the difference in the reflection, this occurs when you shine a torch towards them.

Would temperment work the same with breeding a good dog over a not so good female dog?

I'll pay that one, lmoa! Maybe I heard it from an old Koolie breeder somewhere but..but...you're a Koolie breeder too, hmmmmmm....

I think my brain is exploding with genetic theory already.

you are sooooo loveing to your poor hubby Tj

This forum is so good for the breed - there's openess to thinking about issues and discussing them that I don't see in other places.

Yes, I do wonder about 'never produced a solid' (and 'never produced a dog with problems') - my gut response is not to believe it, but you wouldn't be able to prove it one way or the other.

I read recently about deaf white boxers being 'inevitable' as they are associated with the gene that produces the white patterning on the normal coloured dogs - I don't think it's the usual irish pattern gene - it produces the 'flashy' pattern when dogs only have one of it. Perhaps your dog could have had some other gene/s rather than the merle that was doing the damage?? Not saying that it would be the flashy gene but who knows what's out there. Will be interesting to see if he was MM.

This site has some stuff about white boxers - the bit about the genetics of the patterning starts below the FAQs.

http://www.boxerbuddies.org/Boxer%20Info/white_boxers.htm



And I believe that in the Rough Collie all the merles trace from one dog, who was considered weird and exciting.

Might that suggest that Tink has lots of recessive genes?

Hubby's fine so long as he doesn't read this forum, then I would have to kill him.

This is a unique forum, and it's good we can share opinions, theories and facts.

Nothing is ever black and white, here is something to consider and have a say if you wish.

A farmer destroys all his solid colours and all his whites, is he a bad farmer or a responsible farmer.
Because of his actions has the gene pool been strengthened .?
Is it possible that his actions create a somewhat risky balance of sorts.

If what we have read here is correct, a pup receives a merle gene and a solid gene to be normal (correct me if I'm wrong)

Now say from the pups the farmer has left, half were MM but did not have the visual display common with MM(white coat) and the other half were Mm normal (one merle gene, one solid gene)
Through his choice he has reduces the numbers of MM and mm but has he increased or decreased the numbers of Mm.?(much rather use your brain than mine)

I understand that, breeding merle to merle will produce say out of a litter of eight the average size for a Koolie litter (2)one fourth solid coloured dogs, (4)one half merles and (2)one fourth defective whites.
According to the average taken over 200 litters(I am at a loss to see how a female even starting with her first season and living till she is 16 could have this many litters but it is what the specialist claim so they must have a way.)

So according to this scale he has increased the number of normal merles in his bloodlines.

I am not in favour of culling, not when you have genetic science available to help you, but in the past through culling, the breed has remained in existence, even thrived.
So while not a current socially accepted method of control, still culling is an effective means of control over the effects of the merle gene and any other genetic defects out there.

Culling may even be responsible for why the Koolie is so genetically clean when compared to other breeds, even other working breeds.

Today there is the desexing option, which many farmers wouldn't consider, their way is simple quick and neutralizes the problem.

The majority of our membership is made up of old breeders and old farmers.

We may find it hard to appreciate or even understand their approach to breeding, but they too are faced with making sense out of what we do and you need to ask yourself who has done the more damage to any one breed.

Those who bred them as a tool, or those who have discovered them, and been drawn to their rich qualities, going onto breed them without truly understanding them or their function.
Even without the availability of genetics many old breeders still know the value of regularly using the influence of a solid coloured dog in their breeding program.

And referring back to our gene distribution scale, Breeding merle to solid will produce one half solid colour and one half merles, but no defective whites. The merle to solid breeding, then, produces just as many merles as does the merle to merle breeding, and without the danger of defective puppies. The safe breeding for a merle, then, is to a non-merle mate. This breeding should produce all healthy puppies, and about half will be merles

We just need to educate people that a Koolie is special no matter what the colour to increase the demand for solid colours.

This forum will only remain unique as long as there is no judgment.



Hey Ceejay we have all started testing our dogs in the torch of a night, to see what colour they reflect.
I have three genetically merle defected Koolie males who not only are deaf but one has a vision of 30% It will be interesting to record what they reflect.
I have tried before but they go to bed as soon as it is dark and to wake them after dark, means they will stay awake all night barking at shadows, not worth the loss of sleep.

I have used very steady good natured males over a couple of our more harder unsociable females and have had excellent results with the progeny being more steady, calm and confident, while not prooving the theory it does encourage me to do it again if faced with a more dominant female than I require.

Yes Kooliemum that may be the case with Tink, she has been bred in the past with strong coloured horses. Her last stallion was a palamino colour and some of Tink came through. Mainly the splashes of white on the foals rump and the foal has Tinks face (if that makes sense). The owner actually kept the foal because of the unusual splash on the rump it looks like someone has gone through and put a couple of brush strokes on his rump.

TJ you do bring up some interesting subject matter. Regarding culling of dogs I can see both sides of the fence with the issue, I don't necessary agree with it but I think it has served its purpose in the past. Now that we will have DNA and tests to check the MM merle maybe we can learn more towards the scientific method.

I am not a breeder and will probably never be (I cannot let go of the little tykes) actually I should never say never maybe when I am older and retired. lol. But the more that I learn here the better I will be at understanding about the koolie genetics.

So has anyone else got the torches out to see what the reflections of their dogs are?

As I read the info, a dog is either MM (having received a M from each parent), or Mm (recieving one M and one non m from each parent, the M coming from the merle parent), or mm, (having recieved a non m from each either solid or merle parent).

If I have it right, a solid pup in a litter may well come from the merle parents side with its m , an a merle pup may well come from the solid side of the family, if the solid had one merle parent. Also, you see this when you get blue merle dogs from red parents. I note on the website that Frank Kelm had a 100% blue merle litter sired by his red male. The blue must have come from the bitch, or the reds distant lineage, or a combination of both, but could not have come directly from the red.

I've just read some info on Aussies, and it says two mm parents cannot produce Mm? Do we know this to be true for Koolies? I find it hard to believe that a pup could inherit say, its grannys coat texture, but not her merling.

I don't agree with the word normal only being used to describe Mm dogs. If the dog had two genetically Koolie parents, it's a normal Koolie regardless if it is a solid. It is simply scientifically wrong to say only merles are koolies, the solid dog has no defect, it's just not merle. In my opinion it is wrong to cull a perfectly good solid dog, and I don't understand why farmers did that if the aim was to produce a good working dog. Whites are another question.

The effect of culling both whites and solids would be mathematically to cancel each others effect out. You cull the whites, sure, but you also cull the cure to the whites, and in the short and long term the way to deal with the white problem is simply to accept that with Koolies, sometimes you get solids and sometimes you get merles. If you just breed Mm to Mm all the time, you're just going to keep reintroducing MM.

Just my two bobs worth. I'm not sure I've got the science right on the genes, but where it is known you can avoid problems with prudent breeding, why even go to culling.There are plenty of stock people out there that don't give a hoot about merle or wall eyes, so long as the dog can work. Look at all the outcrossing over the years.

It is a good point to make that a dog may be an MM, yet slip under the radar because it doesn't have the white hallmarks, so it's not even a very efficient way of keeping track on MM. You could technically have a dog which is MM, yet think it is Mm, and sent it of to breed with a Mm, or worse, a highly coloured MM.

i breed roan cavies and it was the same thing you had to breed a roan to a non roan or you would end up with blind/deaf pups in the litter. we found the best results came from using a roan male over a solid female you would get better marked roans this way and only one or two solids in the litter if any out of 6 pups but if you used a solid male over a roan female you would end up with more solids then roans but the solids from this mating had better-stronger-richer colour you then use these solids back into your breeding program and by doing this you would keep the dilutes out of your lines, but we did not shy away from the dilutes they were called beige or lilacs we would then breed these each to their colour example had two litters of chocolate roans born each had a dilute one roan one solid in it wait 4 mths breed theses two beige pups together i would have no white pups born just beige roans and solids. i also found the solid beige's were very big robust animals weighing in around 4 to 5 kgs your backyard pet cavie comes in at 1-2 kgs. that was one of he reasons that i picked spice she is a solid and she has a good strong colour nice rich tan points her white markings are defined and don't just fade away or blend in good bones and big for a bitch when i looked at her as a pup she was the same size as her brother and a little bit taller then another pup the same age from a different litter, that told me she was very robust and would breed very nice pups if i did breed from her.

I'm sorry I haven't been around for all of this thread, thanks to a dud booster on an old copper wire phone line. Anyway

A solid pup may come from a Mm X Mm mating if the pup inherits a m from each parent. But merle or M is dominant to m so if the pup inherits a M it shows merle somewhere on its body. The killer is that it might only be a few hairs, that you cannot see. mm is a true solid so cannot contribute the merle M again even if a parent was merled because it has only inherited m.
Again the blue is dominant to red so when the blue gene is present it is always visual over red, but one parent must be blue for this to happen, also all blue offspring will 'carry' red and be able to have red pups.His distant lineage has no effect as blue is dominant so would be seen and cannot be carried by red.
The bitch may have been BB so each pup inherited the blue gene from her. Or in the law of averages if she was Bb by luck the pups just fluked that they inherited just the B from her which was dominant to his bb.
Absolutely true. If both parents are mm and both contribute a gene each they only have m to contribute and need a M to be a merle. If a solid to solid mating produces a merle either one parent is a cryptic merle (only showing a few hairs) or someone is fiddling with the litter.
Absolutely agree. Until the DNA is available though it was the only way people could be sure easily that they were dealing with a koolie, hence the stigma of solids. What really frustrates me is the people that have a litter of 3 koolies and 3 kelpies..... We have to get people over colour being the only way to tell and that is happening slowly through the club and people talking about it.

I'm glad you've confirmed this for me Royalla. Is it also true of Dalmation cavies? As a kid I had a Dalmation (who was *evil* so I never bred him - commitment to breeder ethics came early to me obviously) and had picked up that idea somewhere but recently wondered if I'd got it wrong as I couldn't find it anywhere.

No judgement - yes!

Breeding MMs should produce all merles, I think, but some of them would be expected to be MMs (all if both parents were MMs). Not that I have any problem with breeding MMs (even if they're white, deaf etc) to mms.

Perhaps if there are strains which don't produce solids and don't produce white MMs (although, if they don't produce solids I think they must be producing MMs of some kind), they have some other genes that are moderating the effects of being MM. It seems unlikely to me that there could be different versions of the M gene within the breed. Perhaps if the merle dogs used were fairly dark it might do it, although when I look at dogs used in some of these lines they don't strike me as particularly dark and some have white trim.

Not sure I fully understand what the hypothetical farmer has done (is it that he's now breeding his MMs and Mms to each other - he won't get mms that he *has* to destroy and he'll probably get MMs some of which might be white, but that'll be a smaller percentage of dogs than he had to destroy when he was producing solids too?). He might still either breed his Mms to Mms or his MMs to MMs and won't reliably be able to tell which he's doing - which will raise the percentages of solids or whites. To me it doesn't seem that he's changed anything much if he's still producing dogs he *has* (according to his lights) to destroy. I wouldn't say that someone had created a balance if the balance in their bloodline exists only because they're still culling dogs (if I understand the eg).

When I did an Environmental Philosophy subject recently one of the things we discussed was whether a species could have interests. Lots of our environmental practices are based on the assumption that they do, and the welfare of individuals is sacrificed for the welfare of the species (eg. individuals are put in zoos to preserve the species). I couldn't get away from a belief that they can't - they aren't an entity, a species doesn't have a 'person' or a sense of self, it's a bunch of individuals and they are the ones with interests. I think the same applies to breeds. We imagine a breed as a whole and having interest and 'welfare' but there is no such entity. People care about what happens to *the* Koolie but Koolies don't. So I think it's unacceptable to sacrifice the welfare of the individual for the sake of the breed or bloodline. I regard each culled dog as a tragedy. Nothing about that dog (if it's culled on colour) makes it care less about its welfare than any other dog that gets to live out it's life. IMO.

the same rule go's to dalies if you have black dali boar (show quality) you put him over a self black sow now out of this litter you keep the best self black with the lest fadeing in HER hair shafts her colour must be as even as possable you then breed her back to your best boar which should be her father then you should have something which you can show if you are lucky. any dali pups born from the first litter you choose the best marked sow out of this and breed her to a self black boar all other pups from these litters you sell of as breeders or as pets(this would have been how you got your boar) sorry that is about the only way you can get a show quality dali they are one of the hardest marked cavies to breed and the torti and white are even harder. So if you had an evil lol dali you could bet your bottom dollar that his mother was scatty and his father was nasty as these two would have been related and most likely in the way i described above. i have never bred a nasty pig all mine were quite but a couple the i brought in were scatty and if they did not stettle down with the help of some very quite pigs around them i would not breed from them but sold them on and told the people why i was selling them.

Kooliemum you present a view that hasn't possibly been considered and some will say is there a need to even consider this view.

Don't ask me, I love all views, who knows how or when they may impact upon any of us.



Now this is thought provoking, could it be that because many breeders selected only Merles to breed with, that even though they were "fixing" the white problem with thier initial cull, is it possible they were in effect recreating it again through the introduction of another merle, not necessarily from their own line.
Not every past breeder line bred in fact it was a selective few.



As Silhouette so eloquently explained above, it is impossibly to get a merle from two mm parents.
If both parents are MM then they cannot produce mm pups(correct me if I'm wrong)
Breeding a defective animal can only perpetuate the problem and is not advised.

Through rescue we have rescued an intire litter from a white mother who was deaf sired by a father who was all black with an Irish trim.
The pups were light in colour,with white undercoats, some with white faces, most with pink noses, all with pink in their mouths, a couple with white eyes, a couple with a white eye.

They all have wonderful temperments due mostly to the loving care they recieved by thier owner.
It was an accidental mating and the female has been desexed, but there have been incidents in the past where a good working dog has been discovered to be deaf after it has had pups or sired litters.
This is due to the koolie adapting so well that their owners have failed to realize they are deaf.

I know with my own deaf Koolie's if it wasn't for their distinct colouring you wouldn't be able to tell them apart from their hearing mates.
No I don't recommend that we all breed from deaf Koolie's.



Nope I wasn't implying he would then breed those left in the litter together, I would have included that he was inbreeding if I was going down that track of thought, but what you say would indeed occure if he did.

The availability of genetic assistance wasn't an option in the past, now it is and with time we will see more and more adoption of its use, so these discussion help us understand why there is a need to include genetics in our breeding programs.
And offer new and experienced breeders improved and reliable methods which will insure healthy safe resulting litters, without the need to cull.
Before then there are still minds to convince

Royalla you make me so glad I decided to get involved with Koolies and not Cavies, I though a Deli was a dog, but it seems it is yet another colour in this fascinating little creature, which you educated me is a guineapigs( Please don't shoot me if this is a derogative remark.)

I wasn't really considering that *the* farmer would be inbreeding, just that if he's interbreeding his dogs selected in this way with those of breeders doing the same all he could be using would be MMs and Mms.

That's interesting about the litter with the black dad being deaf (were they deaf, or just pale?). Because unless he's a cryptic they can only be Mm, can't they? I would be wondering whether 1) he's really the dad and 2) whether there's some other gene that's done the damage. Although either case seems too much of a coincidence - there aren't that many random accidental matings between 2 merle dogs unless one person owns both, are there. Even if he was a cryptic merle, he's such a dark merle that I'd have expected that to protect the pups.

He was the only guinea pig that's ever bitten me. All the others I had were nice too.

Ok but Matilda is Blue merle and was one in a litter of nine who are all blue merle. Her Father is a Solid black and her mother is a red merle, neither direct parent is blue. Her Fathers father is a Blue merle, and long coated (which Tilly also is, or medium at least) She has a litter of younger sibilings (same parents) and they all (4 pups) are also blue merle. So does this come from a solid black parent acting as the "blue" because blue is really dilute Black? or is something else going on?

Blue in a koolie is a black dog that is affected by the merle gene (M) which washes out the colour in patches over the dog. Genetically the blue dog and the black dog are the same colour. Merle is a coat pattern. It is a traditional name which is easier to stick with than try and change. In the same way we use Red when other breeds use brown or chocolate, but for some reason have kept the same name for our solids. Merle is different to dilute which creates the so called lilac and fawn and names like that which is something I personally don't want to see encouraged in the breed due to the skin problems etc that other breeds have with this colour. It is possible it has arrived with the use of kelpies here and there (my guess) as they have dilutes.

Is it also possible that Tilly's dad could have been a cryptic, he wouldn't need to be because the mum was supplying on merle gene, but in all solid to merle matings I have recorded there have been solid pups, just a thought.

Kooliemum the dad wasn't deaf the mum was, the pups could all hear and thier sight was not affected, all but two out of the litter were white with some merle red and blue two were heavily coloured tris both red and blue.
Both mum and dad were owned by this person and there were on other known dogs out where they lived, middle of no where.
We shall continue to monitor the litters progress and maybe learn more from the DNA

I registered Wal as an Associate with the CCCQ at a time when I think the club was talking about using 'black merle' for the blues. So I put in colour 'black merle and white' and he's registered as 'black, merle and white'. Which is a bit silly, but anyway.

i think there should be black merles for the very dark ones like Greyson and blue merles for the lighter ones like Chase..... chocolate merle again for the dark ones and red merle for the lighter reds then of course you have your tri merles.

It is possible, but may be a fluke in that the first 9 from the mating happened to be merle, remember you need something like 200 results of the same mating to see what an 'average' response would be. It is also possible the merled parent is MM, so can only contribute a M gene so all offspring are merled. If the other dog is mm (solid) all offspring will be Mm.

We have tried to register everyones dogs with the description they each prefer, although often people ask for guidance I will suggest the common red & blue merle because it is what the majority of our members understand.
Everyone is welcome to use those terms but where do you stop, what about the pale ones should they be grey, or light grey or white merles? As usual it is where do you stop when you are trying to keep things simple. With regard to Chocolate and Red merles, without digging out the genetics book to verify the science - Chocolate and red are different genetically, so this would be a bit more confusing. Then of course there is what people call a "Tweed Merle" pattern, which is different to the common merle.....
In an attempt to encourage people to register their dogs we were mindful of keeping it simple. But we do ecourage everyone to submit a good clear photo of their dog even for Section A as any question can be answered, particularly if you make your dog available for stud.

oh please let's wait for the genetic answer to the colour issue.

I have haad a look atthe colour range of other breeds like the kelpie, border, sheltie, collie even the Aussie and it leave my head spinning.

They could be all talking about the one colour, but you wouldn't know it, nope all to swimming around in my head.

I have enough trouble trying to cope with just merle and it's not even a colour but a pattern.(correct me if I'm wrong, I know you want to)

sorry i am use to lots of colours from the cavies i will cover their colour range for you
we will start with the selfs
pink eyed white,
dark eyed white
cream
saffron which is a pink eyed cream but because of the pink eye it changers the colour to a more yellow look
gold
red
chocolate
black
lilac
beige
slate
now the agouti's
silver agouti tip of hair shaft silver under colour black
golden agouti tip of hair shaft gold under colour black
lemon agouti tip of hair shaft saffron under colour black
cream agouti tip of hair shaft cream under colour chocolate
cinnamon agouti tip of hair shaft silver under colour chocolate
then you have your argente's these are just dilute's of the agouti's
gold/lilac argente tip of hair shaft gold under colour lilac
gold/beige argente
saffron/lilac argente
saffron/ beige argente
now the marked cavies
himalayians chocolate or black
dalmations black, chocolate, golden, well all the colours that saves a bit of typing lol
dutch again all the self colours
torashells
tortashell and white
roans
all the above self colours apart from whites
their are other marked cavies but i can't remember them all and to show them there colour and markings head shape ears body shape size had to be as perfit as you could get them. then you had your rexs satins long hairs

Do we know what it is that determines the particular pattern and distribution of the dilute and dark parts of the merle coat? Is it *genetic* or random or uterine environment or something else? I believe that with Tortie cats the distribution of colour is due to the uterine environment and a while back when they cloned the first cat, she was a tortie and was a completely differently pattern from the original from whom she was cloned. Not sure whether the spotting gene in cats is similar in this or whether this only applies to torties.

So would 2 genetically identical merles look exactly the same?



Does this mean you would suggest that dogs that have produced dilutes ought not be bred again? and dogs from litters that included dilutes? That would mean loosing some dogs with other good features from the gene pool.

Ok, I've just looked it up and the white spotting gene in cats is variable in how it is expressed and can result in a completely white cat. But still not sure what determines how it varies.

No. I would be quite happy if they weren't BUT I can't tell anyone what to do. In my opinion it depends on the curcumstances, if you had two pups that were equal in all other aspects I would suggest the "normal" would be the best way to go. If your only option from the mating to get the dog you want (good worker) was the dilute go with it but be careful not to breed it back to anything that might carry dilute and definately not to a dilute. Of the ones that have been born I don't know of any exhibiting problems, but that me be just luck to this point other breeds definately do and we don't need another problem. Also I am strongly against the "ooooh isn't it cute" factor, one of the biggest reasons for koolies ending up in the pound I am sure. If you showed and old time breeder a dilute I think they would be a bit perplexed and dismayed. Lets keep it simple, it is obviously confusing enough as is.

I think it is better to keep the original colour descriptions, ie. blue/red merle, solid, white, tri and just qualify by saying dark/light and describe the trim. If it gets too exotic it will create confusion and the temptation to people to try and go for exotic colours which is not necessarily good.

Hey Royalla and you wonder why we would rather stay with just solid, merle and tri.

Kooliemum I have Dilutes in my blue bloodline, and it does concern me because of the problems you hear from other breeds with Dilute like the Doberman and kelpie.

The blue Doberman has to be fed kelp to keep its colour and the fawn have loads of skin allergies.
As a breeder I'd prefer to avoid these issues.
There are two dilute bitches in our bloodline which we will breed back to true colours this year.

If the pups don't display the dilute I still won't be able to tell if any are carriers.

Does anyone know if this recessive gene must be carried by both parents or can it be pasted on by just one.

It might be simple to avoid breeding dilutes but doesn't it remain in the bloodline forever, you can't actually breed a gene out of existence can you.

Out of the last litter a red male from our red line and a solid tri from our blue line were the parents.
To my knowledge I have never produced dilutes from my red line and I know for sure it has never shown in my tri merles.

So wouldn't this indicate that the gene is coming from only one parent.