merles

CKC and Merle Chihuahuas

CKC has decided to let the CCC make the merle pattern a disqualification in the Chihuahua breed standard.

However merle Chihuahuas are still registered with the Canadian Kennel Club and are pedigree purebreds. They just cannot compete for Championships, or can they?

There's a slight hitch in that scenario. Merle is not just a simple color. It is a pattern that can modify a color. It is not a pattern that is visibly expressed on every color. How can a dog be dq'd for something which can't be seen?

For example sable merles. Collie and Sheltie people are aware of sable merles and that they often cannot be identified by just looking at them.

This is a sable merle chihuahua

He looks like an average fawn dog

This litter has one sable merle(1st pup) a cream and a blue merle

This is the same sable merle pup much older. The merling has mostly disappeared.

This pup now looks like an average fawn Chihuahua.

This is the blue merle from the same litter.

The parents of these pups were a tri color and a sable merle.

Then we also have the cream merles. The merle pattern needs a dark color to show itself. The merle gene randomly dilutes colored areas of a dog. So a black dog will have silver or blue patches that can be in a leopard pattern, erratic pattern, heavy black patches or cryptic pattern. Cryptic being a merle dog with little or no merle pattern being expressed but still genetically a merle dog and will produce merles but still can be shown in the conformation ring where merle's are dq'd since it does not have the merle markings.

This is a self colored cream merle. I'm not exactly sure how her color would be categorized since she is not a typical cream color because she has chocolate colored pigment and ruby eyes. She must be a very dilute chocolate variation. She is a non visible merle and from birth has never had any merle markings on her other than the slight smudge of chocolate on her lip which faded and a blue eye.

Not all blue eyes are from merling. Non merles have been known to have blue eyes as well and not all merles have blue eyes.

Cream colored dogs don't have dark tipped hair like sables so there is no way for the pattern to show up on a pale colored coat. Results is a non visible merle dog capable of competing in the show ring.

The problem with this is we have to now be very careful when breeding.CKC is not doing the breed a favor by pushing merles back into the closet. Since the pattern is dq'd for showing breeders are not going to be open about their merles. Dogs are not going to be correctly registered as merles since the very limited CKC color codes don't include the merle pattern. With the dq in place now people wont go out of their way to personally write to CKC with pictures to request their dogs be correctly registered as merles.

I know exactly which of my own dogs are merle and which are not. I have only sold one merle on open breeding and this was a visible blue merle. So that is not a problem for me. My vet will spay or neuter puppies as soon as the reach 2 pounds.

I have been breeding merles for a while now and am on my fourth generation and I can say that merles are safe to breed and I have never in all these years ever had one pup with vision or hearing problems. There is obviously no problem with merles and fertility!

They are as safe to breed as merle Collies which I have also been breeding and showing for nearly 2 decades.

Ch.Laud Sienna Merle

Merle puppy

mom is a chocolate&tan and dad is blue merle

The golden colored pup in the middle is a cream merle.

Her brother is a chocolate merle with white markings.

The mostly white pup is a chocolate sable spotted on white(not a merle) and the top pup is a regular sable with white markings.

sire: red sable

white markings

Dam: Sable merle

Chocolate merle

from this litter

Another possibilty for the merle gene being hidden is in brindles

The merle pattern can hide in the faint stripes of a brindle chihuahua

Chihuahuas can come in the traditional tiger brindle, blue brindle, chocolate brindle and reverse brindle. Merling can be a part of any of these combinations