Australain Shepherd colors;bi-colored merles?

[chick2good4u]

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Thank you - He's a sweetie! Got 2 more in black...awesome dogs!

 

[Kansaseq]

Gorgeous sheltie. No wonder I'm such a fan of my Splash Ameraucanas!
I feel better knowing what to call Vega's color. Tan point blue merle Makes him sound special

 

[pardygwyn]

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Some of those ACDs can be really small and light! Another possibility is he's a border collie mix instead of an Aussie mix - they come in merle, too, and border x ACD is also a common working mix. So his nose is liver when the flash isn't washing it out? He probably carries liver, then, instead of being a dilute blue. If you've ever seen a yellow lab with a liver nose, those also carry liver and can produce chocolate labs when bred to another carrier or a chocolate.

He sounds like a keeper to me! Keep working with him, especially with the pushiness and making him look to you as the alpha. If you don't already know about NILIF, look it up! Both Aussies and cattle dogs use a lot of dominance in their work, so you want to make sure you don't become the work. LOL

 

[Kansaseq]

Thanks, Pardy,
I will look up that NILIF. I am very much an advocate for owners being alpha to their dogs; just have gotten really lazy since I stopped showing (entry level agility and conformation--YEARS ago, and household obedience). Plus my other dogs are all older and more or less know the rules. Now I gotta get myself back into training mode. Thanks so much for your help!

ETA; I just looked up the NILIF program. Fortunately, I already use a lot of these techniques with my dogs already, so it shouldn't be too hard to use them on Vega. He doesn't know down or stay yet, so we def have to work on those. He does have to eat last, wait until I feed all the other dogs, then sit before he gets his bowl. I just need to be more insistent about the attention thing. That's his worst 'bad' habit.

 

[chick2good4u]

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Not bi-blues. This is a specific color terminology thing we're running into.

Bi-merle literally means there are only two colors, which in a blue dog would be blue and black. Here is a bi-blue sheltie:
http://www.canamishelties.com/images/tillybdy3.jpg
A red bi-merle would be light and dark red with no tan points. Your dog and Kansaseq's are tanpoint blue merles.

pardygwyn is correct on the bi-color - tri-color includes the tan points. - BEAUTIFUL Sheltie, by the way!

Genetically Australian Shepherds are either red or black. Genetically black dogs will have black nose/eye rim/lip pigment while genetically red dogs will have liver nose/eye rim/lip pigment. The merle gene acts independently from color; a red merle is a genetically red dog w/ the merle gene while a blue merle is a genetically black dog w/ a merle gene. Tan points act independently from merle. Here is a good site that explains Aussie color in more detail: http://www.ashgi.org/color/index.html

I show my dogs in AKC & ASCA conformation. tri-color (tan points) in solid & merle is more commonly seen then bi-color (no tan) in the show ring. Plain dogs (solid w/ no tan or white) are 100% acceptable but rarely seen.

Here's a pic of my black tri boy "Major" at 10 mo old.

 

[chick2good4u]

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Kansaseq,

I love Vega! - he looks young - did they guess how old he was? Looks very smart & attentive too - Aussies & Aussie mixes often live to please their owners. Looks like you got a keeper!

 

[Kansaseq]

Chick2--love the name Major! Did it help him get them?

Beautiful boy.
I estimate him to be about a year--he has all of his big boy teeth in, and my Dr's at work agree with me.
I am already a fan of the herding dogs, having had Tervuren past and present. He's just a little more stubborn; but then I haven't had him from puppyhood. All of my dogs go through basic obedience classes at least once (ok guilty on the pit, but she's pretty obedient--would actually make a good obedience dog), so I'm playing catch up with him. He does have a strong desire to please me, and was a breeze to housebreak.
Had not planned on keeping him,but so far no perfect home has come up. I'd like him to be an inside dog (hey, my dogs sleep on my BED)and be either an only or one of 3 at most (dogs). A working home or one where he'll get training, and not be allowed to roam the streets or pastures; I'm just odd that way!. Most likely, he'll stay with me. I'm not very good at fostering dogs; I end up keeping most of them

 

[ChickenFanaticAB]

Such a cute boy! Aussie/Aussie Mixes are some of my favorite dogs. Not to be a thread stealer-but since there seem to be people who might know on this thread; what color is this guy? Levi was our foster for a few months (finally got a great home!!) but I was always curious about his color. He looks merle, but almost has some brindle coloring mixed in. Not sure what breed he is either, some sort of collie mix. He had a large mane when he got to us, but I pretty much brushed it all out as it was matted, and made him extremely hot to boot. Any thoughts? Not the best pictures, but hopefully they give you all an idea.

 

[EweSheep]

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Not bi-blues. This is a specific color terminology thing we're running into.

Bi-merle literally means there are only two colors, which in a blue dog would be blue and black. Here is a bi-blue sheltie:
http://www.canamishelties.com/images/tillybdy3.jpg
A red bi-merle would be light and dark red with no tan points. Your dog and Kansaseq's are tanpoint blue merles.

All those years of raising collies, how in the world do we get that color????? I know the brown points exist in blue merles...we love our blue merles and they were awesome! But to get this bi blue color, how did they breed this sheltie to get that color? What about his offsprings?

Just all beautiful dogs in here!

 

[pardygwyn]

Ewesheep: bi-blue is simply an all-black dog with the merle gene thrown in. In most collie-type breeds' cases, there is also the Irish white color pattern bringing in that third color, but they still refer to it as bi-merle. These colors and more were present in the original collie stock, but have been bred against in certain modern breeds according to the breed clubs' tastes. The variety is still found in border collies, Aussies, and shelties though I suspect the Aussies will lose many of the "off" colors as they become more standardized. They'll still pop up on occasion, though, especially the recessive colors! Those still pop up in rough collies, in whom they've been bred against for over 100 years now. Usually when they do, the first thing squawked is "mongrels!" due to a lack of understanding of color genetics. It's certainly possible that the dogs in question aren't purebred, but it's not a given just because an odd recessive has been stumbled upon. I've seen recessive bi-black and bi-merle collies, liver with tan point collies in both solid and merle, even a sable whose black points were liver! And other fun stuff like harlequin merle. If you'd like, I can post pictures over the weekend. I was initiated into my coat color genetic geekery by my dog Maynard, who appears to be a dilute blue merle. You can visit him on the link in my siggy.

ChickenFanaticAB: it's difficult to tell from those photos, but I would guess either a sable merle or a brindle. Or both? Now that would be a crazy combination! Both genes are dominant, though, so I don't see why it couldn't happen.