The Merle Debacle Pt. I

First of all I have nothing against the merle coloring in dogs, in fact I think it's quite a beautiful color. It comes in many shades and variations and all of them are actually very lovely.

  Black merle, red merle, blue merle, and tweed merle. 

What I am here to bitch talk about is the idiocy of -bad- merle breeders. Clarifying the fact that not all merle breeders, but BAD merle breeders piss me the fuck off.

I suppose I ought to explain a bit about the merle gene first. This is the single gene in the canine DNA strand labeled 'M' that is responsible for producing all of the merles in the canine world. The 'M' gene is a dominant gene, which means that only one copy is required to produce a merle dog. It is called merle in most breeds such as the border collie, Australian shepherd, catahoula leopard dog, cardigan Welsh corgi, etc. It is called 'dapple' in dachshunds. It exists in many breeds from tiny to giant. It can affect any color as it is actually a modifier, not a base color.

mm- Non-merle. The dog is not merle and cannot produce merle offspring.
Mm- Merle. The dog is merle colored and usually produces 25-50% merle offspring.
MM- Double Merle. The dog is merle, can only produce merle offspring, and has a tendency to be mostly white, deaf, and have eye problems or blindness.

Breeding for color first and foremost is just stupid... You're sacrificing the health and temperament of the dogs in order to produce color. It should never ever be done this way. Health should always been number one when breeding animals, followed very closely by temperament. We, in the animal world, have a term we use for people who breed strictly for color... 'Krazy Kolor Breeders'. People like that should be shot, or simply never allowed to breed animals in their lives.

A GOOD dog is NEVER a bad color.

A dog with phenomenal health and temperament should never be shut out by any breeder just because it was born the 'wrong' color.

The merle gene in double doses acts like a 'lethal' gene. Something like Overo Lethal White Syndrome in horses, Pearl coloring in rats, Afghan coloring in sheep, etc. It's not a complete lethal though, as the puppies from dominant merle breedings, 'double' merles, usually live, but have a host of severe health issues.

The thing that really gets under my skin is people who don't do their fucking research and breed merle to merle. The results are usually catastrophic. The pups are usually born mostly white with small patches of merle coloring (a few may have a lot of coloring, though). Some may be solid white. Over half, often all, of the puppies will be deaf or have some kind of hearing impairment. Over half usually have eye problems, many are blind. Some are born with very tiny eyes, half eyes, or are born without any eyes at all. Breeding merle to merle causes the suppression of pigment cells (melanocytes) in the iris of the eyes and in the stria vascularis of the cochlea in the inner ears and leads to blue eyes, anomalies, and deafness.

  Double merle Australian shepherd. Deaf, blind, with tiny almost nonexistant eyes. 

Congenital deafness is a huge factor in merle breeding. Most do not research enough and end up with a litter of deaf/blind puppies under the idiotic mantra "but ALL of the puppies are guaranteed to be merle!" and thus can be sold for more based upon color alone. What they don't realize is double merle puppies are usually mostly white, and thus disproves their reason for breeding in the end. Yes all of the puppies will produce only merle offspring, but they themselves will be mostly white and have a myriad of health problems. Still people breed for just this reason! There is NO reason what-so-ever to breed unhealthy dogs on the basis of color! It's absurd and the resulting litters of mostly white puppies with numerous health problems, like blindness, deafness, and sunburn issues, are the only ones that suffer.

There have even been reports of dog owners who wanted to breed merles for the colorful puppies, selected two merle parents, bred them, and then upon the disappointment of getting litter after litter of white, blind, deaf puppies have drowned, gassed, or had them all euthanized.

When the dogs born, if they live, like this grow up they grow up in a dark and soundless world most of the time. And the only reason for this is because of stupid fucking breeders who don't give a shit about the health of the animals and breed merle to merle simply because they know the dogs will produce only merle offspring, or breed under the assumption that all the pups will all be normal looking merles, or they were merle people who didn't do any kind of research to begin with. No matter how you look at it, it is WRONG. There is no need for this. The only reason these dogs exist in their sad ill-health short-lived states is because of selfishness and stupidity.

And it gets worse...

Breeders are deliberately breeding litters of double merles in order to keep a double merle male dog for stud, even knowing of the health issues that will result. It doesn't matter to them because he can be registered with whatever breed/kennel club and he will make a mint as a stud dog because he can only produce merle puppies, no matter what bitch he is bred to.

Wyndlair Avalanch... a double merle collie with retinal atrophy and deafness is the nations TOP SIRE of merle collies, because he can produce only merles... He has a boatload of health problems, a weak rear end, bad movement, and yet he is a top stud and he continues to churn out more and more puppies, merle and double merle.

Double merles, blind with tiny problem ridden eyes, deaf, and full of health problems.

Dogs like these are advertised time and again and bred, rebred, and bred some more to both merle and non-merle dogs... Simply because they can -only- produce that pattern. Breeders breeding for color only. The sacrifice of health for little more than coat pattern.

I think any breeder who thinks it's okay to breed the unhealthy messes they are just to get a certain color because it's 'more flashy' or 'valuable' needs to be put in stocks and flogged for days. They have no right being dog breeders.