I have been holding off on posting puppy pictures...

[4 Love of Baby Chickens]

Puppies!

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

Quote:
Hi - I bred and showed Danes (which have the maltese blue color AND have merle) and now breed and show Cardigans (which have the same color variations as collies). Just to let you know that I do know what I'm talking about.

Maltese blue is a simple recessive, on the D locus. Most dogs are DD; blue carriers are Dd, and blues (maltese blues; also called blueies in a lot of herding dogs) are dd. The father of your litter is very obviously a dd maltese blue. The mother is a black carrying blue.

Maltese blue is not merle, not related to merle, and not a type of merle. It's on a different gene locus and is inherited independently. You can, in fact, have a genuine blue merle, where the darkest patches are blue and not black.

Your babies are blue tri, which is relatively common in some breeds.

Maltese blue dilutes all black and chocolate pigment (chocolate becomes a color that various breeds call isabella or lilac or grey; it's the same grey as most US Weimaraners). You CAN see it on sables, especially in the puppy weeks when the guard hairs are dark, but even after the guard hairs have shed out you can see it in the pigment of the nose leather and around the eyes.

The reason most breeds that don't already have Maltese blue don't want it introduced is that blue is produced by weird melanin granules. Instead of the melanin being in tiny grains inside the hair shaft it's in big grains and clumps. That's what reflects light back to us as that steel blue color and not as black. The big grains and clumps of melanin make the hair more prone to breakage; if the hair breaks and the melanin spills onto the skin it causes a sort of constant chemical burn and grease buildup and eventually the dog can't grow hair anymore. It's called color dilution alopecia and it's so common in some breeds (Dobermans are the worst) that they don't have ANY blue dogs with normal coat. Because nobody knows at what point the hair moves from being a functional hair, just blue colored, to being a problem, in most breeds they prefer to not introduce the color.

 

[pardygwyn]

BlacksheepCardigans, I do know what dd blue is, and like I said, this doesn't inherit like dd blue.

Or at least, it seems pretty unlikely that the sire's Maltese father, brother, and half-brother have all produced recessive blue pups when bred to five widely varying bloodlines in a breed where dilute blue and liver have been aggressively selected against for a century. No tricolor sons of the Maltese dogs have produced Maltese pups when bred to the same b*tches, either. If this were a recessive color, they would carry a copy and it would show up in around 25% of the litter when bred to the dams who had previously produced Maltese pups. It's worth noting that there's still some room for error in that last point, being as I'm going off of only two litters' worth of evidence.

But these two are merle, believe it or not! So's their dad, seen here as a puppy:

The only place you can see any classic merle markings at all is the back of his right ear. He passed that on. Now let's hope he passed on his gentle love of babies, guardian nature and ability to float when he moves, too.

Believe me, I've turned more than one knowledgeable person on their ear with these dogs.

It's funny because I'm not a fan of the merle gene at all. I actually would have preferred a sable from Maynard's litter, but the only boys worth debating over were both blue.

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

I've seen hundreds and HUNDREDS of blue puppies, and easily as many merle puppies, and I have written back and forth with Dr. Schmutz about merle and blue. I promise, there isn't "another merle" or an "old type of merle." If somebody told you it was called Maltese, it's a dd blue. Maltese is the old word for dd blue; geneticists started using it at the turn of the last century.

In terms of why it showed up so strongly in breedings - well, that's the nature of recessive genes. They hide for a long time and then as soon as you give them a chance (by breeding to a blue dog, for example, meaning the recessive will show up if it's there) they pop up. If "selecting against" them worked, we'd never have mismarks in show lines, and in fact we have a ton. You're working with farm collie lines that have infusions of other breeds (Aussies have blueies, as do Border Collies - some of the working lines of BCs are FULL of blueies) and your rough collies are not show-bred. Both of those mean that having recessive colors is even less surprising.

Maynard doesn't look like a blue merle (i.e., a true blue merle, a dd merle) to me; the even color of his blue is not the way blue merles look. The merle gene creates a salt-and-peppering that makes the dd slate blue into a powdery blue or even a blueish brown. The dilute aussie site has a ton of great pictures of the difference between dd blue and dd merle.

Your blue puppies have the slate pigment (noses) and eye rims, light eyes, and even color that characterize dd dilutes. They had no variation in the color as bitty babies, which is when you would see the most. Merle shows up the best in newborns and then appears to fade a bit as the coat grows; it doesn't show up more as they age. I would bet they were eel-striped when they were brand newborns, right? For the first few hours? Eel striping is another classic sign of dd blues.

This isn't a negative - blue dogs are wonderful! I've owned and bred them myself. It's not a comment on your breeding or anything like that. I just don't want anyone reading it to think that there's some "new" or "old" merle that's not the same as normal merle. Merle breeding and merle genetics is a big giant pool of controversy and lots of people get very het up about whether or not they should exist or be bred or be bred to each other. If there were some kind of second merle gene with a different mode of inheritance it would throw a ton of breeding programs into complete chaos.

 

[Bramblerose]

Really cute puppies, I must admit that I like the blues, even if their considered to be a big no no. Black sheep is right, there is no different merle, and merle is an incomplete dominant, whereas the blue dilute gene is normally a recessive. Merle is also a pattern, not a color, and base color and pattern can differ, this is a really good article written by Cheryl Anderson on merle-

http://www.cherdensheltie.com/totemblu.html

These are pictures of some maltese shelties- the second one is supposed to be a hidden/cryptic merle.

http://www.spectralrhapsody.com/pb/wp_0539d73d/images/img309904ca68097ae6de.jpg

http://www.spectralrhapsody.com/pb/wp_0539d73d/images/img246734c6deeaf68e7a.jpg


I think that the merling that your seeing around their ears is normal color variation that the blues can have. I've seen color variations like that on blues before. Because it appears to be on the ears only of three related dogs it could very well be just that. Black is black, however blue as a dilute can have tone and color changes over the dogs coat.

As for you theories on the color inheritence on maltese blues I'm leaning in your direction, normally the dilute gene has to be carried by both parents to produce it, however it does appear in a few cases that a dog that carried or expressed it was able to produce it with the other dog not being a carrier. That would make maltese blue an incomplete dominant like merle. I'm still not convinced one way or the other.

That article mentions 'anopthic' spots, which are basicly maltese blue patches on merle dogs. Since I first read that years ago I've paid extra attention whenever I've seen merle dogs and I've realized that its pretty wide spread in shelties, even in show dogs. Last specialty that I was at most of the merles there had varying degrees of anopthic spots. I've had/have merle dogs with them as well. I've heard that its the reason why the collie breeders worked so hard to create a clear blue coat with very little merling, so as to get rid of the anopthic maltese blue patches. I've seen pictures of 'lavender Merle' border collies, so very very pretty. It would be so neat to to breed Maynard to a merle and see what you got, as I really don't think he's a merle, just a maltese blue. I think your dogs are beautiful, and I'm impressed with your testing results, your doing a good job. Didn't want you to think that I was being critical.

 

[MomtoSyd&Emma]

Clover needs to take a ride to the mountains of VA to live in my home lol

 

[pardygwyn]

No worries, I'm not thinking anyone is being critical, here! Color is color, and this family has been fun to discuss over the past few years.

I assumed when I brought Maynard home that he was both dilute blue and merle, having seen several of these in other collie-type breeds. And yes, his Maltese-headed white father has produced some merles of the more standard variety, so it is in the mix. It was the way the Maltese color inherited through breedings in the rest of his family that made me doubt my initial opinion - his family has been bred extensively. The numbers I've given you are definitely low by this point because I can't keep up with the woman who has Maynard's father, uncle, sister, and some nieces/nephews. I'm aware that recessives are hard to eliminate without genetic testing, however the inheritance in the family is different enough to catch my attention. It could definitely be a matter of some of the blue dogs being tris rather than merles. Sounds like we're going to get the test done, though! Kate from Romany Collies, who's raising this litter for me, is willing.

If this is a dd family, then slate blue seems a far more common recessive in rough collies than liver, given the commonness of blue pups in so many different breedings. Either that or the people making liver collies aren't as vocal! Yes, I am very fond of chocolate collies. LOL

Nope, no eel-striping that I'm aware of... I wasn't there for the birth, but I do have photos of them where they're new enough to still be wet. I'll have to ask about it. However, I don't believe it has to be a given that dd blues have eel-striping when born, either.

Bramblerose, I wasn't aware that dd blues ever had merling in places? I'm not talking about vague changes in body color as found on the rest of him, but a distinct merling pattern. It doesn't seem far-fetched to me that there could be cryptic merle tendencies in this family, as well. But that's interesting that you've seen breedings where dilute blue acts like an incomplete dominant! That's definitely where I'm leaning with this group of dogs; I never meant to imply that the color was all due to merle alone, but the interaction between merle and another gene which doesn't seem to act like a recessive. I'll own that my using the term "modifier" was misleading... consider it a holdover glitch from recent discussions on Harlequin merles.

But enough color-geekery segue. I really need to get back to studying for finals. LOL

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

You get more color variations in the dark coat in the herding dogs because the black is not a true black. It's sable-where-the-sable-is-restricted-to-the-points. Think of it like this - a genuine black dog, black to the skin like a black Lab, is acted on by a sabling gene that pushes the black to the edges of the body - the topline, the tail tip, a little bit on the face. Picture a drop of detergent hitting oily water and pushing the oil to the edges. That's what makes sable in herding dogs. Then another gene - sort of detergent x 2 - draws that sable way out to the edges of the dog and uncovers black again. That's what makes tri. Because tri is a restricted sable, not a true black, it's weaker than a true (dominant) black. You can see a lot more undercoat through it and you get the washier or bronzy blacks in the mix too.

Bronzy tri + merle = "gunmetal" merle, which has a lot of brown in it. I've seen true black merles look almost cinnamon in the merled parts because there's so much red coming through. Bronzy tri + dd blue = yellowish or brassy blue.

It's completely normal for dd blue to be weaker in places too. In the breeds where dd blue is accepted, we often try to get it as weak as possible so the blue dog is as dark as possible. My blue Danes would often shade to completely black on the tailtips and their noses and pawpads looked black. You couldn't tell the difference between their noses and a black dog's nose unless you put them right next to each other.

Also, remember that while to a certain extent the merle patterning is inherited - if you use a merle with a ton of black, often called a cryptic merle, you are more likely to get a cryptic merle puppy - it's not strongly inherited. There's no way that a cryptic merle who only had one tiny merle patch behind one ear would produce nothing but cryptic merle. He might produce one in a litter but the rest of them would be more classic in color. Cryptic merles are used as a scare tactic in a bunch of breeds - "If we allow merle in the breed, somebody will breed two cryptic merles together because they won't know that they're merles, and then you'll get a deaf white puppy and the world will end" - but when put to the test it just doesn't happen. True cryptics, where the merle is invisible to the naked eye except when the dog was a newborn, are incredibly rare (NOT special or valuable or valued, just rare) and they produce like normal merles.

All of which is a long way of saying "If it looks like a dd blue it's probably a dd blue."

 

[pardygwyn]

Well, his father hasn't produced only cryptic-type merles, and Maynard himself has only produced these two pups, one of whom is so white as to be difficult to tell quite WHAT he is. LOL I have a couple of litters by Maynard planned for next year while the gals are still in their prime, so it will interesting to see what comes of them.

 

[debilorrah]

In your pic of the whole litter, that second from the left is a freakin TANK!!!! They are alll soo precious!!!!