Information explaining the unrest in the chihuahua community over this pattern and why many breeders are boycotting them altogether.
As well as a bit on how we feel about it all at True Shot Chihuahuas
If you came here to find out if I am breeding merles, look no further. I no longer keep merle chihuahuas at True Shot, and haven't in many years. If you care to read why, scroll to the bottom of this article until you see the bold text. That'll explain in a nutshell why I have decided against the pattern. If you're here to learn more about it, please continue : )
Alright I am finally going to express my thoughts on the merle pattern,
show you the arguments that led me to question my original decision, and
how I came to the decision that I hold to today. I fell in love with
merles the moment I saw one. It was, and is still, my very favorite pattern of chihuahua. I immediately sought one out, and started breeding
her. You can see her in the header for this page on the right, with the
first merle pup I bred on the left. I decided I was pro-merle and I
don't care what anyone else thinks because I love them. Then I realized
that is selfish and if there is a huge controversy going on in the
chihuahua world... there must be some merit behind it. A friend of mine
mentioned that you shouldn't breed two merles together because they
have a lethal gene that could cause blindness or deafness... WHAT?
That's when it hit me... I was being irresponsible and I needed to
research this pattern before I go any farther.
So, I did. The more I read the pages of anti-merle breeders the more I realized, oh my goodness... they are RIGHT! It is a gene riddled with issues, it wasn't originally in the chihuahua breed so where did it come from? Does this mean merles aren't 100% chihuahua? Pebbles could be a mutt? Breeding merle to merle can cause blindness, deafness, a whole host of eye problems and the list goes on and on. What kind of "responsible" breeder would introduce something like that into an innocent breed already filled with a rainbow of beautiful colors and patterns?!?! I started feeling guilty and realized if I'm going to breed merles I need to be 100% certain that doing so is in no way going to negatively impact the breed. Forget angering certain groups of breeders or making enemies, I'm talking chihuahuas as a whole in America, will I make them better or worse? I started to realize, inserting the merle gene into chihuahuas was a tragedy! I agree with these people who are so against the little spotted chis I loved so dearly. I was converted, sad, and upset... I wrote my merle loving friends that I thought I might have switched sides and I didn't know what to do. I mean I can't breed this gene into the chihuahua lines and have a clear conscience about it... so rather than spay my merle immediately and mope about the house I spent some time thinking on it.
Soon I realized... the issue here is not whether or not we should insert the merle gene into the breed... its what to do about it now that its here and taken off like a rocket. Merles ARE in the chihuahua gene pool now. There is no going back from that.
So, I did. The more I read the pages of anti-merle breeders the more I realized, oh my goodness... they are RIGHT! It is a gene riddled with issues, it wasn't originally in the chihuahua breed so where did it come from? Does this mean merles aren't 100% chihuahua? Pebbles could be a mutt? Breeding merle to merle can cause blindness, deafness, a whole host of eye problems and the list goes on and on. What kind of "responsible" breeder would introduce something like that into an innocent breed already filled with a rainbow of beautiful colors and patterns?!?! I started feeling guilty and realized if I'm going to breed merles I need to be 100% certain that doing so is in no way going to negatively impact the breed. Forget angering certain groups of breeders or making enemies, I'm talking chihuahuas as a whole in America, will I make them better or worse? I started to realize, inserting the merle gene into chihuahuas was a tragedy! I agree with these people who are so against the little spotted chis I loved so dearly. I was converted, sad, and upset... I wrote my merle loving friends that I thought I might have switched sides and I didn't know what to do. I mean I can't breed this gene into the chihuahua lines and have a clear conscience about it... so rather than spay my merle immediately and mope about the house I spent some time thinking on it.
Soon I realized... the issue here is not whether or not we should insert the merle gene into the breed... its what to do about it now that its here and taken off like a rocket. Merles ARE in the chihuahua gene pool now. There is no going back from that.
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There is much controversy over this photograph in the pro/con merle debate. Many say it is proof of the merle gene being around for nearly 100 years. Others say it is the effect of age on a very poor gunpowder flash photograph. Printed by the Rio Grande Republic, LAs Cruces, N.M. published by Alameda Kennels LAS Cruces, N.M. written by Walter Johnson Chihuahuas "The first Chihuahua Book" |
You know I hate it that we bombed Japan with a nuclear weapon. The USA, though they had sound reasons, really did something catastrophic to the planet with that one. However as much as I hate it, stating why it was wrong, what horrible things it did to our environment, why we shouldn't have done it, should have done it, pros and cons, etc etc etc... isn't helping remove radiation from Hiroshima. Follow my logic? So I've narrowed it down to two schools of thought on the solution... the true issue dividing the sides on the debate. How do we fix this? Either we A. Ban merles and dogs related to them period and try to purge the breed of the taint (anti-merle breeders) or we B. Try to improve the pattern as much as possible breeding out the issues that it brings with it (pro-merle breeders). Well, I think the great divide between these two groups is the fact that neither of these solutions is possible!
So we ban the merle pattern from the AKC and the show world. That is... not going to stop people from breeding them. It will only make the pattern more desirable as a selling ploy and make the dogs that do have the pattern sink further and further into the toilet in quality. Granted it will keep it out of show lines, but according to the AKC around 28,000 Chihuahuas are registered each year, but less than 2% are registered by actual AKC breeder/exhibitors. That means 98% of the breed as a whole isn't involved in show lines. So banning them from the ring isn't going to stop them from showing up, its going to make the quality go down, which sadly doesn't mean much to Joe Public who wants a little spotted dog that someone told him was a chihuahua. BUT... I can see their point.
So we start breeding them responsibly as much as possible to improve the pattern within the breed and get rid of the defects that come with it, only breeding DNA tested dogs that come back as pure chihuahuas (we don't want chi-weenies winning Westminster). Now while that's going to help improve a problem that's out there, there's still a BIG issue with the merle gene that it doesn't do much for. Breeding a merle to a merle makes 25% of the dogs have a pretty great chance to have issues with hearing and sight. Are you breeding merles right now? Did you know that? Ever even heard of it? Maybe you should be doing a little research as well... because I had no idea when I started doing it.
Now... we have a couple of solutions that sound good to back but are laced with holes. Now what? Well you pick a side and you either breed them or don't... or don't care either way. The merle gene is found in all dogs. The majority of breeds, however, have a recessive gene for it. We'll call it m. A few breeds have a dominant gene for merle. We'll call that one M. Genetics lesson. A dominant gene always over powers a recessive one. So if you have M in your DNA, you're a merle... whether you can see it now or not, if your mom was a merle that you could see (Meaning she looked like a merle) you have a 75% chance that you are a merle too, in your DNA. If you don't show the gene, never did in any way, and neither did your parents, you are not a merle. Since merle is dominant, it always expresses itself in some way. We always have a pair of genes to express a trait. That means a dog that looks like a merle to you and I, has either the MM genes for merle, we call that Homozygous... it means both genes are the same, or it has the Mm genes for merle, called heterozygous... it means your genes for that trait are different... one dominant and one recessive. Still with me? Two kinds of merles you can see... MM and Mm.
The genetic problem with merles comes when someone breeds two of them together. Why? Healthy normal merles, on the whole, are Mm merles. They have the dominant trait from one parent and the recessive one from the other. Lets use my dogs for an example. Pebbles is a healthy merle with no issues. We'll assume she's an Mm merle. Bullet is a blue with no merles in his pedigree for a few generations so he doesn't have the gene, I'll explain how I know in a moment. We know Bullet is a mm chihuahua. Meaning he's not a merle and doesn't have the gene to show it in his DNA. Now if I take Pebbles, and breed her to Bullet, I am breeding Mm x mm. Follow that? Pebbles = Mm and Bullet = mm. So if we follow the rules of genetics for a gene, we'll get a ratio of puppies that looks like this:
So because Merle is dominant... only dogs with the Capitol M gene show themselves as merles. Whether that dog is a nicely spotted dog or is a lightly spotted dog that fades with time into a sable or a solid color we won't know. You notice here though that 50% of the dogs in question are not merles, even though their mother was a merle, they can't pass the pattern on because they don't have the dominant "M" gene to override the recessive non-merle gene "m". Take in point the case of my litter of pups pictured on this site... Clara and Piper. Clara is a mm pup from Bullet and Pebbles. I know this because Clara is a black and tan. If Clara had the M gene, she would have expressed merle in some way. She did not. Her sister Piper, however, is the Mm pup, because she expressed the merle trait... meaning she had to have the dominant gene.
 Clara |
 Piper |
So the only way miss Clara, even though she has a merle mother, is going to produce a merle pup, is to be bred to a dog with the M gene. Which means that dog will either be a merle or show some signs of being a merle. Miss Piper will have a 50% chance to produce merle pups, so long as she is bred to a dog that we are certain is mm for merle. Now we can significantly increase our chances of her pups being merles to 75% by breeding her to another merle. Here is where the problem with the merle gene lies. Crossing a dog that is merle Mm to another healthy merle Mm, will produce 25% MM, or homozygous merles. Meaning they have two of the dominant genes for the merle trait. The problem with that is, two dominant merle genes don't get along well, they have a very high rate of arguing and showing their bottoms in the form of a white dog (or largely white dog) that is some variant of blind and/or deaf.
You get 25% MM dogs with the major health issues, 50% Mm "healthy" merles, and 25% mm dogs with no merle gene at all. This is why you should NEVER breed a merle to a merle! Even if the
spots faded, even if it only has a tiny speck of blue on one eye... the M
gene does not get along with other M genes. You don't want them in the
same dog! You can never fix that, breed it out, or find a solution.
The only hope is to never breed two merles together. So this is where
the issue with correcting the problems in the merle lines comes from.
You simply cannot.
However, maybe there is a solution that would appease both sides! The anti-merle breeders do not want the gene in their lines and do not want to see the breed destroyed by the merle gene, and believe their best bet is to ban it... even though it would likely be detrimental to the breed in many ways as well. The pro-merle breeders want to improve upon the situation at hand, and try to fix the issues they can, but they can't fix this genetic issue that lies within the pattern itself. There is a huge war going on in the chihuahua breeder/exhibition world over this issue. My solution is, why not label it within the pedigrees? Its a compromise, but it would give a solution to both parties that would not be disastrous to either side. Say Pebbles was AKC registered (she sadly is not so this pedigree is fictitious... but I am moving to all AKC dogs) and say Bullet was as well. If we labeled the dogs when registered for visible signs of merling we could watch lines for the trait, helping anti-merle breeders to keep the gene out of their lines and helping pro-merle breeders to avoid accidentally and unknowingly crossing two merle parents and producing MM dogs.
Say I registered Pebbles as True Shot's Pewter Pebbles... the AKC could attach a M+ to the end of her name on her pedigree... making her
True Shot's Pewter Pebbles M+
This tells anyone who sees it that she is a visible positive for the merle gene. Now when I register Clara, the AKC could attach a M- to the end of her name on the pedigree, stating that she is not visibly a merle, but one of her parents was... making her
True Shot's Clara Bella M-
I cannot ensure 100% that Clara did not express the merle gene in some way that I didn't notice without a DNA profile, so this would give a heads up to anyone considering breeding her to a merle that its possible she has the gene. The beauty of the dominant gene is that, if Clara does not express the gene, she is bred to a dog that does not express the gene, and her pups do not express the gene, we know they are mm... Merle Free. So if I read a pedigree and there are no - M+ or -M- in the lines back for 2 generations, that dog cannot have the merle trait. This allows anti-merle breeders to breed with those who also breed merles and be certain they are not getting merle genes in their lines, it allows the pro-merle breeders to continue the work on their pattern without the worry of crossing merles to merles.
The issue I can find with this is honesty. Not everyone will admit their dog is a merle. So why don't we require a color photograph to register any dog associated with a line that has had the merle trait? A shot of the body from both sides and the head showing the eyes clearly would be enough to prove a dog as M+ or M- .
Say I registered Pebbles as True Shot's Pewter Pebbles... the AKC could attach a M+ to the end of her name on her pedigree... making her
True Shot's Pewter Pebbles M+
This tells anyone who sees it that she is a visible positive for the merle gene. Now when I register Clara, the AKC could attach a M- to the end of her name on the pedigree, stating that she is not visibly a merle, but one of her parents was... making her
True Shot's Clara Bella M-
I cannot ensure 100% that Clara did not express the merle gene in some way that I didn't notice without a DNA profile, so this would give a heads up to anyone considering breeding her to a merle that its possible she has the gene. The beauty of the dominant gene is that, if Clara does not express the gene, she is bred to a dog that does not express the gene, and her pups do not express the gene, we know they are mm... Merle Free. So if I read a pedigree and there are no - M+ or -M- in the lines back for 2 generations, that dog cannot have the merle trait. This allows anti-merle breeders to breed with those who also breed merles and be certain they are not getting merle genes in their lines, it allows the pro-merle breeders to continue the work on their pattern without the worry of crossing merles to merles.
The issue I can find with this is honesty. Not everyone will admit their dog is a merle. So why don't we require a color photograph to register any dog associated with a line that has had the merle trait? A shot of the body from both sides and the head showing the eyes clearly would be enough to prove a dog as M+ or M- .
The heart of the matter I see, is that the show/exhibitor world's aim, the entire reason we all breed and show, is to preserve and improve the chihuahua as a breed in the best and purest form possible to ensure the continuation of the breed in its true form for future generations. If merles were originally not part of the breed, and their genetic problems not found in the breed, it is likely best to maintain a population of excellent breed standard animals that do not possess the merle gene anywhere in their pedigree. So basically you are on one side of that fence or the other. You either want to maintain a pure bloodline or you want to improve the lines that contain the merle gene in order to eliminate faults from them. Problem is, you can't eliminate the possibility of seeing the effects from a lethal gene.
In conclusion, I have decided against breeding merles personally, simply because it is not in my best interest. Honestly I am more interested in building my show lines in the direction I would like to go by using the very best dogs possible while focusing on very pleasant temperament and great structure. I feel it would take many generations of careful breeding to come close to the quality that can be found when one is not focused on producing the merle pattern. So, that said, I do not breed merles at True Shot. I have found that a great deal of controversy arises when one mentions the possibility that a person's pedigree lines might be used to produce merles. In order to prevent any worry over such an issue arising, I am quite willing to sign a contract stating that your dogs and its descendents are not to be used to produce merle dogs at any point, or sold to those intending to breed them to merles. Quite simply if you do not wish your dogs to be bred to merles, you are welcome to that choice, and I will respect that. I plan to be around for a long, long while, and prefer not to make enemies before I have even gotten started. I have been in chihuahuas for years now, and have a reputation for being a very open, honest, upfront person, and can assure you there is no one who will attest to my behaving otherwise. I'd like to keep it that way :) If that changes, I'm sure anyone who wants to find out about it could easily do so by asking around.
I have left this article here with the wish to educate as many people as possible to BOTH sides of this issue, in the hopes that others can make their own decisions based on facts and what their heart tells them is best for them. If you decide you would rather not do business with me because of this, I'll find that unfortunate and sad, and I will have to find other lines to work with. I hope you can still respect my decision and me as a person and will not personally hold a grudge against me for making a very thought out and well informed decision that is in opposition to an equally educated decision on your part. I respect any decision that is based in factual research and following one's heart. Do me a favor tho... before you e-mail me a novel on how irresponsible it is to introduce genetic disorders into the breed... are your dogs health tested? If you are so interested in protecting the genetic integrity of the breed, that means you never breed a dog before it is tested and cleared for heart murmur, luxating patellas, and eye abnormalities... right? Best wishes as always and God Bless to all... thank you so much for caring enough to take the time to read all this :)
Most respectfully yours,
~Andrea Carter
True Shot Chihuahuas
In conclusion, I have decided against breeding merles personally, simply because it is not in my best interest. Honestly I am more interested in building my show lines in the direction I would like to go by using the very best dogs possible while focusing on very pleasant temperament and great structure. I feel it would take many generations of careful breeding to come close to the quality that can be found when one is not focused on producing the merle pattern. So, that said, I do not breed merles at True Shot. I have found that a great deal of controversy arises when one mentions the possibility that a person's pedigree lines might be used to produce merles. In order to prevent any worry over such an issue arising, I am quite willing to sign a contract stating that your dogs and its descendents are not to be used to produce merle dogs at any point, or sold to those intending to breed them to merles. Quite simply if you do not wish your dogs to be bred to merles, you are welcome to that choice, and I will respect that. I plan to be around for a long, long while, and prefer not to make enemies before I have even gotten started. I have been in chihuahuas for years now, and have a reputation for being a very open, honest, upfront person, and can assure you there is no one who will attest to my behaving otherwise. I'd like to keep it that way :) If that changes, I'm sure anyone who wants to find out about it could easily do so by asking around.
I have left this article here with the wish to educate as many people as possible to BOTH sides of this issue, in the hopes that others can make their own decisions based on facts and what their heart tells them is best for them. If you decide you would rather not do business with me because of this, I'll find that unfortunate and sad, and I will have to find other lines to work with. I hope you can still respect my decision and me as a person and will not personally hold a grudge against me for making a very thought out and well informed decision that is in opposition to an equally educated decision on your part. I respect any decision that is based in factual research and following one's heart. Do me a favor tho... before you e-mail me a novel on how irresponsible it is to introduce genetic disorders into the breed... are your dogs health tested? If you are so interested in protecting the genetic integrity of the breed, that means you never breed a dog before it is tested and cleared for heart murmur, luxating patellas, and eye abnormalities... right? Best wishes as always and God Bless to all... thank you so much for caring enough to take the time to read all this :)
Most respectfully yours,
~Andrea Carter
True Shot Chihuahuas
Other Arguments Against the Merle Pattern
Breed Standard Issues! I have read that because the chihuahua breed standard lists chihuahuas as having a "saucy" expression that the cold stare of a blue eyed chihuahua does not meet the breed standard. I agree! If a dog for ANY reason does not meet the breed standard flat out, I don't feel that dog should be shown. So if your dog does not have a saucy expression, perhaps the show ring is not for him/her. How many dogs have been bred that have wonderful conformation but just don't have the right personality for it? Would you ban that dog and its lines from the breed? Not all merles have cold blue eyes just like not all spotted on white dogs have the proper head-study to be show dogs.
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How about this dog? Sienna is what you call a hidden merle.
Saucy = 1. impertinent; insolent: a saucy remark; a saucy child. 2. pert; boldly smart. Synonyms: rude, impudent, fresh, brazen, jaunty. Can. CH SIENNA MERLE Bred by Laurie Dodge of Laud Dogs www.laud-dogs.com Owned by Tina Horth of Lost Island Chihuahuas www.lostislandchihuahuas.com |
What is a "Hidden Merle"
The term "Hidden" is used to refer to a dog that expressed the merle gene at some point in its life, but due to conflict with other colors and/or patterns, has grown to no longer express this gene. These dogs can be dangerous in the wrong hands, because it makes it possible to accidentally breed a merle to a merle without the breeder being aware of it. For example... these two pictures show the same puppy at 1 week, 5 weeks, and at 3 months.
Here you can see the merle markings clearly expressed
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This is the same puppy seen at about 5 weeks, notice the spots fading
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By Dec. this puppy has almost lost all traces of the original spots. At 6 months she was visibly a red with irish markings
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You can see how easy it would be to mistake this dog for a non-merle carrier. It takes an open, honest breeder to maintain this puppy as a merle throughout its lifetime, to protect others from accidentally breeding it to other merles. The Chihuahua Club of America does an excellent job of explaining hidden merles on their Merle Guidelines page, which you can read by clicking HERE and is also listed in the info links below.
Merle info Links
A Wonderful Page on Laurie Dodge's Website about the positives of the merle pattern. - Website currently Down :(
A page that very thoroughly explains the arguments against breeding merles
Chihuahua Club of America - Merle Guidelines. An excellent read for any who breed merles!
More to come as my research continues!