I have a rather complicated question to ask about Freya's coat and was wondering whether there was anyone on here who knows about genetics and collie coat patterns? Basically I'm wondering if it's possible for a dog to be Merle + another colour.

Cheers

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Dont know if this will be any help?
Border Collie Colours

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All merle dogs are merle + another color. The dominant allele at the merle locus causes dilution to the black pigment on a dogs coat. It does not have an affect on the red/tan/yellow/cream parts of the coat.

Merle is a modifier of a color. It has a color 'name', but it is not the basis of the color.

There are well over 13 different gene loci (separate pairs of alleles) that control coat color, and more that control coat texture and length etc.

Merle is on one location that offers just two alleles (that we currently know of). They are M (dominant merle) and m (non-merle).

Any single dog has a pair of alleles at that location. Most are m/m - non merle and non merle. The other options there are M/m - which shows the merle coloring modifying the coat, and M/M, which is often lethal and has health defects associated so is quite uncommon.

So a dog that would be black/tan and white like this -


http://cartangel.webs.com/farmcollies.htm

With merle modifying the coat looks like this -


http://www.mermayde.com.cn/en/boys_2_en.html

The genes that determine their coat color would be the same (in all practical sense) BUT FOR the tricolor dog is m/m at the merle locus, and the merle dog is M/m.

Here is a another to contrast.

A black and white border collie -



Border Collie. About Border Collies

With the M/m (dominant merle) instead of m/m (non-merle) that color is modified to look like this.



Border Collie colours - dreamwork border collies

The link right above actually has a pretty good explanation of colors.

In your profile album Freya's photos tells me that she is a black & tan (with a little white) dog with merle modifying her black areas.

I could break down what I can see of her color alleles for you if you would like.

CC

Did you mean is it possible to be merle without looking merle?

If so, then yes, sable or ee red (aka aus red or gold) will mask the merle colour, so when breeding them you need to know there isn't merle in their lines or have them dna tested for the merle gene. There's also kryptic merles, where there's only a small patch of merle and this may be in a white area of the coat, so not show up or just a tiny patch in an area not easy to see. If you have any doubt dna test for merle before breeding to another merle dog or just choose a solid colour dog and if any merle puppies in the litter you know they definately carry merle.


Or did you mean are there different colour merles.

In which case, the answer is yes, there's blue merle which is the merle of the black/white, red merle which is the merle of red/white, slate merle which is merle of the blue/white, lilac merle which is the merle of lilac/white and tri of all of these.

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Thanks everyone. That's a great help. I was starting to really confuse myself with the genetics last night.

So what we are trying to decipher is if Freya's sire was a Collie. Her mum, although she did not look particularly like a collie, had a grey and black (which I believe is Merle) coat with a white chest. She had short, wirey hair. I came to the conclusion that because Freya is a Merle like her mum but with the extra tan on her paws and face, her sire must have been a Collie. If I understand this correctly, if Freya's sire was a Labrador for example, surely Freya would be completely Merle with no tan and would inherit no coat from her sire... or is this completely wrong?

Freya looks most like the rough collie (2nd picture) but with far less white; her coat is pretty much grey and black.

Comfortcreature; when you say her 'colour alleles', I'm not entirely sure what you mean but I would be very interested to gain a little understanding of where her coat comes from. Her mum was brought in to the rescue in whelp so we will never be sure; but I feel because of the Merle in her coat, it does give us some clues.

Sorry if I'm not explaining myself very well

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I'd love a better description here. Was she bearded and wire like a Terrier or wire coated Dashchund? Gray and white CAN be merle, and often is, but there are other causes of gray and white. Did it look merle?

Also, do you have other photos you could post of Freya.

In regards to the merle, it is a dominantly inherited trait. She needs JUST one parent to pass it on to her. If her mom was merle that would be the obvious parent.

Be aware that the color called 'dapple' in Daschunds . . . is merle. I mention that as I see a hint of Dashchund in Freya, and if her dam had a wire coat then that would be the breed I'd look to, as that is a common Dashchund coat type.

The color called 'harlequin' in Danes . . . is merle with an extra variant.

Lots of breeds have merle members.

In regards to what alleles are . . . they are the paired variants that make up a gene at each location. They are given letter names by geneticists.

So when I type "M/m" that represents the two alleles on the merle locus. Some loci have many variants available in a breed but each dog can only hold a pair (two - one from mom and one from dad) at each of his/her own gene locations.

Each locus indicates an affect on the coat color.

The tan points DO have to be inherited through both mom and dad. The allele for tan point IS recessive and is often unseen (as the second allele to a dominant one in the pair). So, Freya's mom did not show tanpoint - I take it. She did, however, carry it, as she gave that recessive allele to Freya.

Freya's dad did the same. He might not have been tanpoint either - just a carrier himself.

There are lots of breeds with tanpoints. If Freya greatly favors Collie, that would be her most likely place of getting them as it is a fairly common breed with lots of tanpoint members.

I can definately see, from looking at Freya, the possiblity of both Collie AND Dashchund behind her - but not necessarily just a mix of those two. Once mixing starts phenotypes of pups can vary quite a bit.

CC

Now seeing pictures of dapple Daschunds, I can definitely see a resemblance in Freya. Obviously her body isn't that of a Daschund and obviously she still has a very puppy face as she is only 9 weeks old.

Her mum did not have a beard but had a wire overcoat much like a border terrier, and if you stroked her you could feel a softer coat underneath. This is a picture of her mum...



Not the best, but sort of gives you an idea of how she looked, and her coat.

Here are a couple of others of Freya





Sorry about the jumper she's wearing, I don't have any others just yet to show her whole body.

She was one of 9 in her litter, and 3 of them were solid black, 1 of them was black, white and tan and the others were patterned like Freya.

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She looks more Australian Shepherd than Border Collie to me.

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she's very cute :-) as others have said tan points on a border collie are recessive (both parents have to be tri or to carry tri for pups to be tri) and merle doesn't affect the tan (which is the same gene as sable) bits. But don't forget that in other breeds (like shelties) tri colour is dominant so only one parent has to be or carry the tri gene. Merle is dominant though so only one parent has to be merle for a pup to be merle. It can be hidden and it can be in a number of breeds (including rough/smooth collies, border collies, shelties, cardigan corgis, australian shepherds, koolies, even bearded collies although the breed clubs would have otherwise!)

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