Mia

Poor girl.

What really bothers me is that there are ASSA member breeders - well-known, popular people in the breed - who intentionally produce double-merles to breed from. The argument goes that the blue puppies produced by double-merles have clearer coloring. The owners of these dogs swear up and down that they can see and hear just fine, and get around with no trouble... but for every seeing/hearing, correct-conformation double-merle dog who has a nice life, how many severely deformed puppies do you have to produce? A merle-merle breeding does not always produce a single, perfect, gorgeous dog that you can then use to make pretty blues - it can just as easily produce a litterfull of puppies that need to be put to sleep. (And though you can argue that a puppy humanely euthanized at a day old never really suffers, I think it would take an awfully hard heart to produce puppies with full knowledge that it's entirely likely that some will have to be destroyed.)

Some people are a-ok with it, but I think it's terrible. (Big caveat: intentional merle-merle breeding by "serious" show breeders is still quite rare - but I think it shouldn't happen at all.)
 
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I would seriously question the ethics of a breeder who did this. If I found out, I would never buy from that breeder, nor would I support him or her in any way.
 
Oh gosh I just showed her picture to Brian.She pulls at our heart strings.I would take her in a heart beat.She is a miracle,and reminds us of our Bumper.

This is just a shame that breeders intentionally will do a merle to merle breeding.

She is a precious little one~
 
You may be interested to know that the UK Kennel Club has recently placed a ban (refusal to register) merle to merle matings for shelties on the advice of the breed health council. I fully support this desicion.

I am interested to know, can Mia hear ok? I think the link only says she is blind. I know a sheltie who is mainly white but has small colour patches but both ears are white and he is deaf. I watched him pass his Good Citizen award last weekend with flying colours. He is lucky as he has owners who are dedicated to his training and quality of life.:smile2:

We had two white persian cats which were totally deaf, not uncommon in this colour combined with blue eyes. They used to sleep on top on the telephone and were completly oblivious when it rang - made answering it a bit difficult!
 
I would point out that Mia is more likely the result of a merle-to-merle breeding that was either unintentional, or done by people who didn't know the risk of producing deaf/blind dogs.

Very, very few breeders intentionally produce double-merles. It does happen, but it is rare.
 
seashel said:
You may be interested to know that the UK Kennel Club has recently placed a ban (refusal to register) merle to merle matings for shelties on the advice of the breed health council. I fully support this desicion.
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geeze, I wish we'd do that here... if nothing else, it would mean that people couldn't advertise "Super-rare amazing white Shelties, AKC-registered!"
 
tofu pup said:
Poor girl.

What really bothers me is that there are ASSA member breeders - well-known, popular people in the breed - who intentionally produce double-merles to breed from. The argument goes that the blue puppies produced by double-merles have clearer coloring. The owners of these dogs swear up and down that they can see and hear just fine, and get around with no trouble... but for every seeing/hearing, correct-conformation double-merle dog who has a nice life, how many severely deformed puppies do you have to produce? A merle-merle breeding does not always produce a single, perfect, gorgeous dog that you can then use to make pretty blues - it can just as easily produce a litterfull of puppies that need to be put to sleep. (And though you can argue that a puppy humanely euthanized at a day old never really suffers, I think it would take an awfully hard heart to produce puppies with full knowledge that it's entirely likely that some will have to be destroyed.)

Some people are a-ok with it, but I think it's terrible. (Big caveat: intentional merle-merle breeding by "serious" show breeders is still quite rare - but I think it shouldn't happen at all.)
Click to expand...

I have heard this argument about the clear blues from this double merle breeding. Not sure I buy it. Wouldn't it depend on the quality of blue you have in the breeding, since only one merle gene produces blue merle. I heard the converse argument about Sable to merle breeding muddying the blue but the sable gene isn't even passed to the blue.:confused2:

Case in point- Ember from a sable to blue merle breeding. Her sire is the blue merle is from a sable merle to tri breeding. Ember has the clearest blue. So does her bi blue sister.

I know a dog from a double merle to Tri breeding and his blue is very rusty and muddy.

I don't think merle to merle breeding should happen at all either. :(
 
She is a sweet heart. I only wish people would stop breeding these dogs. It's so selfish and irresponsible. I think it's wonderful the UK won't register these dogs. Time to do that here.
 
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