Koolie Breeding

I got to thinking (usually a bad sign) on the blind puppy thread more about the merle gene.

What do you think about the breeding of Koolies a breed where most breeders only consider merle to be an acceptable color? Is it ethical?

From the Toolalla koolie site:

The problem is that merle is a heterozygous condition and cannot be made to breed true. it's genetically impossible. They'd have to cross a merle to a solid or a merle to a merle to get merles, and each of those crosses only produces half the puppies that are merle. You can't avoid non-merles in litters. You could produce litters of completely double merles or completely solids, but not completely merlss. Yet all pups that are shown in litters are shown as merles. What happened to the half of the litter that should be either solid or homozygous merle? Is it right to breed a 'working breed' with color as one of the foremost important traits of the breed? and especially considering that the merle gene has long been known to be destructive?

Of course there are some breeders that actually breed and keep these 'throwbacks' but they seem to be a minority.

I dunno, it's just a topic rarely covered and I wanted to know what you all think.

thats interesting. i don't know a lot about genes determining the colours and such, and koolies are the one vreed that i really have trouble finding any relevant info on "koolies" so i don't even know the breed very well. there is a chance i could see a full blood koolie and i would pas it off as a ACD mix.

but i think i see your point. especially working dogs should not be bred for colour. they should be bred if they have great work ethic (don't attack me, also the dogs should be health tested etc)

for instance, they have the standard black and white bc's, then they have merle and red. sure the red and merle are rarer. but people that want a good working dog are going to be looking at how its works. not at its colour. some people just don't get it i suppose

I always wondered the ethics on chineese cresteds. don't a fourth of them get a lethal allele? I have heard sometimes they are born alive and die slowly. But I haven't looked into it that much so I'm not posatvie.

I need to look up on the merle genetics-I hear so many dog breeds have issues with it but I have never had a merle breed so I never really looked into it.

Anyone that concerened in colouration in a herding breed is a little crazy. Most herding breeds are solid or bi, not merle. To be fiddling with such a colour to that extreme seems completely irresponsible.

Well in cresteds you're only supposed to breed hairless to powderpuff to avoid the homozygous recessive. If you avoid breeding hairless to hairless then half the pups will be hairless and half powderpuff. If you breed a hairless and a hairless half the pusp will be hairless, a fourth powderpuff and a fourth lethal.

Merle works thesame way. In other breeds where it is common and has been common for a long time- ie collies and shelties- it is very very very rarely practised to cross merle and merle. The breeders who do are generally looked down upon. Merle x merle crossings occur more often in dachshunds and are basically all the crosses going on in many koolie lines. The breeders who keep the solids and tris around are scorned for breeding these 'throwbacks'. Its a reason why many chihuahua and pom breeders were against merle in their breeds not only because of suspected crossing but also to keep the gene out of their lines as it contributes to health problems.

I've wondered about that as well. I'm currently fighting a mad obsession with koolies, so I've seen that breeder's site. I will say, the other breeders I've found online do not have such an obsession with the color, and usually have both merle and solid breeding dogs. Although I adore the merles, many of the solids I've seen are really neat lookin dogs as well.

I'll be interested to see any other replies.

Yeah, I do notice that breeders do not always have that color obsession, but enough in koolies do that it makes me wonder. In almost all other breeds merle is seen as one color of many. By keeping the other colors and not breeding merle x merle you avoid health risks It just seems irresponsible to purposefully breed only merles.


the thing that started me thinking about this was that a person I know got two koolie pups from a breeder (not this one). He stated that he ONLY kept merles and only bred merles. He also stated that he had not had a solid puppy OR a double merle in 10 years because he has 'bred them out'. Well, anyone who knows anything about genetics knows that that claim is impossible. It's not possible to breed for a hybrid state, and it cannot ever be acheived as breeding true. The best you can get is 50:50 no matter what pairing. The only difference is in one pairing you get 50% solids and the other you get 25% solids and 25% lethal whites.

It just makes me wonder what's happening to all those unaccounted for pups in these lines...

It's sad that this breeder considers solid-colored dogs a "problem"... >:[

ANY breeder who makes color that much of a priority should be completely avoided, IMHO! Especially considering the health risks.

I have only ever seen merle Koolies, and they're awesome dogs. I have also never seen a Koolie (in person at least) with very much white at all. For some reason, I assumed that because they lack white, they somehow had less of a risk of producing lethal merles. Thanks for bringing this up... I never even thought about it.

Laurelin -

Did the person you know get his in AU or in the US? What were the dogs like temperment wise? I'm trying to get some more information on them, but haven't had a ton of luck.

Couldn't you breed a double merle to a solid and get 100%? It still doesn't make his claim accurate, or ethically correct, but it is an answer to how you could get all merle.

Im not sure about other breeds (im guessing it would be the same) but I know in catahoula's if you breed a solid to an excessive white you would get all leopards (merle's)

Yeah, you would, but it is impossible to get avoiding the double merles, which to me are too risky to breed in the first place. And there's no way he could have done that without having dogs with large amounts of whites or solids in his breeding program. A double merle is fine to breed from if bred to a solid, it's the getting of the double merle that's tricky.

His claim was that he was breeding merle x merle and had 'bred out' the other 'undesirable' colors.

Oh, she got her pups from a breeder in the US, but I can't remember his name. They seemed to be good dogs, but I haven't talked to her since they were pups. It wasn't a breeder I'd go to, though, by the sounds of things.

I do not think that any breed should have primarily merles. I completely disagree with breeding merle x merle.

breeding merel to merle in ANY breed is very dangerous, i think that "breeder" claiming he only breeds merles is full of it. either that or his culling ALOT of pups in litters because of genetic defects comming from a merle to merle relationship.

Wouldn't it be the similar scenario as eye color in humans??? (Only, meryl genes are incomplete dominance, which gives different phenotypical ratios...but for demonstrating the heterozygous gene) For example I have green/blue eyes but both my parents have brown eyes..therefore, they have to both be heterozygous in the brown gene or it wouldn't have been possible for me to have blue eyes.

My parents heterozygous would be equivalent to the meryl gene
My green eyes would be equivalent to the solid gene

Therefore it is not possible to completely eliminate the solid color by only breeding meryl's...I guess the only way you would be able to do this is if you had a way of telling if one of your meryls was homozygous, like some brown eyed people are...but I don't even know if it is possible for a meryl gene to be homozygous, aren't they all heterozygous??? Therefore you will always have a chance of getting a solid pup.

I think you would need a pair of double merles. MM x MM= MM Some are apparently born without defect, but I don't think it guarantees that the young would be without defect. The double merles are should be somewhat identifiable, and extra so if the breeder was unethical enough to use the blind or deaf dogs for breeding.

Assuming it's the same with all breeds:

MM = excessive white (two merle genes, often causes defects)
mm = solid color/no merling
Mm = typical merle

Therefore:

MM x mm = 100%Mm

MmxMm = 25%MM, 50%Mm, 25%mm

MMxMM = 100%MM

Mmxmm = 50%Mm, 50%mm

mmxmm = 100%mm

Since, ideally, nobody is breeding for or with the double merle, the last two are the only crosses that should happen.

MM x mm

If one had a double merle though, there should not be any additional risk in breeding it? It brings up a nice can of worms if a "reputable" breeder acquired one though. Perhaps I see it happening occasionally, especially with working dogs, where there is more of chance of visiting the neighbor's merle than the average suburban breeder with leash laws?

It actually can depend on the breed. I was going to acquire a catahoula a couple of years ago and belonged to a very active catahoula board with plenty of breeders. I asked why I didn't see excessive whites in 90% of the litter pages I looked at that had two merle parents -- they told me that it is thought that catahoulas more commonly absorb unhealthy pups than other breeds -- thus eliminating alot of the excessive whites (homozygous or "double merles") that would have been born. They also don't happen in every itter -- a punnettsquare will tell you that 25% of the litter will be double merle (so if you have 4 puppies, only one will be double merle), but the puppy may have been absorbed, or it just didn't happen. Genetically speaking, a groenendael that carries terv when bred to another groenendael that carries terv SHOULD have terv puppies -- but sometimes they only have groenendael pups. Who knows.

I don't completely disagree with it when you know what you are doing. Since a double merle, when bred to a solid, will produce only merle, it can be a huge benefit to a breeding program-- if you are looking for that one "perfect" merle puppy to continue on your breeding program, you want to heighten your chances of getting it. A double merle can do that for you by giving you an entire litter of merles to choose from. Breeding a heavily merled, non-white factored merle, to another non-white factored merle, will improve your chances of getting a double merle with more pigment and much less chance of deafness/eye problems resulting from lack of pigment. The key is the pigment of the parents. My friend has a very light silver white-factored merle --it would be incredibly irresponsible for her to breed that dog to another merle, as her dog doesn't have very good pigment.