So incredibly disgusted

Don't want to worry you, but the issues with white pigment around eyes and ears isn't necessarily apparent at birth/while the dog is young. My terrier who I lost last year started having the occasional slight discharge from and soreness in her white eye when she was about 9. I would take her to the vets but there was never anything particularly significant found (higher end pressure reading but still in 'normal' band). Then one day she had sudden onset glaucoma. There was about 15 hours between a pressure reading in her white eye that was 'normal' (but the eye looked sore), and a reading the following morning that was 4 times the upper limit and she had gone blind in that eye. The bad eye was removed and she lived another 15 months or so. She was also stone deaf by the end.

Not that she suffered much, she was mid teens before having any issues. But as she became aged it was the hearing and sight that packed in and the failing sight was the main reason for PTS in the end.View attachment 161188

His eyes have dark pigment all the way round, black skin round and I think under as well so I'm assuming should be ok. His ears are very mottled black and white though and were much whiter when he was born. I wonder how it works when they are born white but then spot out. He was very white at 6 weeks an not at 3yrs old hes incredibly spotted and gets darker and spottier year on year so his skin and coat colour is changing fairly often.

Its very common for whippets to have white faces and I've not heard of eye issues but I'm going to do some reading later. Interstingly I've got glaucoma and macular odema and all sorts of eye issues, so in humans its not skin colour related.
 
His eyes have dark pigment all the way round, black skin round and I think under as well so I'm assuming should be ok. His ears are very mottled black and white though and were much whiter when he was born. I wonder how it works when they are born white but then spot out. He was very white at 6 weeks an not at 3yrs old hes incredibly spotted and gets darker and spottier year on year so his skin and coat colour is changing fairly often.

Its very common for whippets to have white faces and I've not heard of eye issues but I'm going to do some reading later. Interstingly I've got glaucoma and macular odema and all sorts of eye issues, so in humans its not skin colour related.
In humans isn't it black skin that gives you a significantly higher risk of glaucoma?
I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine that.

ETA: I forgot to mention in my original post that we had the removed eye analysed in a lab with no underlying cause for the glaucoma found. Hence why her level of whiteness giving her predisposition was mentioned to me.
 
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Hideous all round, but I wouldn’t be getting too caught up on it’s because they’re crossbreeds or from a bad breeder (they are obviously both). Whilst I’m out of the loop with rough collies now mine are all gone, not that many years ago merle to merle was a not very secret, secret which happened quite often.
 
Hideous all round, but I wouldn’t be getting too caught up on it’s because they’re crossbreeds or from a bad breeder (they are obviously both). Whilst I’m out of the loop with rough collies now mine are all gone, not that many years ago merle to merle was a not very secret, secret which happened quite often.
I remember reading about a Rough Collie breeder who purposely bred 2 merles together to get a homozygous merle. This dog who was deaf and blind, was also used by other breeders to guarantee merle puppies.
 
I remember reading about a Rough Collie breeder who purposely bred 2 merles together to get a homozygous merle. This dog who was deaf and blind, was also used by other breeders to guarantee merle puppies.
The obsession for the pure silver rather than ‘blue’ with no heavy marking/hardly any black, is why breeders are/were fixated with these sort of matings. Plus the fact, it always seems that nobody wants tri pups unless they’re a die hard tri fan who’s always had them.
 
Will a dog with one merle parent who is nearly all solid coloured but has a bit of patching have merle pups does anyone know ? He’s a collie if that makes any difference
 
The price of those 'hybrid' (cross breed/mixed breed surely?) puppies!

Since getting ferrets again after a break of 20 ish years, there have been massive changes in the breeding. You can now get ones with white blazes (who usually have Waardenburg syndrome), micro ferrets (tiny, and quite often do not look very robust) and angora (long haired). Health problems built in with all of them. Why can we just leave animals alone?
 
Trying to think what they do with Catahoulas because most of them (I think) have merle genes. Thought breeding merle to merle was okay as long as parents have little white on them?
 
The catahoula gene is called atypical merle, Ma, so they don't have the same issues as have less dilution - I think the longer the gene insertion the more dilution they have and Ma is a medium sized insertion.

This isn't totally up to date but has useful pictures.


PS the double merle rough used for breeding I think has been mentioned more than once now is wyndlair avalanche
double-dilute-merle-collie_wyndlair-avalanche_southland.jpg
 
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