I'm hoping one of you can help me out with this:
A friend of mine has gotten into Pembroke Corgis, and bred a litter that produced red colored coat with one blue eye and one brown eye. She has research in her breed books and can find no explanation. She wonders if it is a throwback from when Pembrokes and Cardigans were bred together. I searched some sites and came up with nadda. Hope there is someone who can shed some light on the subject!
Thanks!
Carissa

Hi Carissa
The occurrence of blue eye in dogs is rather common in some breeds but in others it's non existent or very rare. The usual cause is lack of pigment caused by the presence of merle or extensive white markings but in the case of this Corgi I suspect it could be a trait that is thought to be a simple recessive in breeds that it is known to occur in, most notably the Siberian Husky where it is acceptable in the standard. Unless of course this dog happens to have a lot of white on the face. Other breeds known to produce the occasional recessive blue eye are the Bernese and Finnish Lapphund. I've not heard of it in Pembroke Corgis.

It's unlikely to be associated with blue eye in Cardigans as this is due to the presence of merle. AFAIK blue eye occurs in merle Cardis only. It is remotely possible that this Pem is a pseudo merle, as red coat colour can hide merle but I seriously doubt that as Pem breeders would surely have noticed some evidence of merle!

My guess is that this is a rare recessive in the breed. Both parents will be carriers and will produce it at a rate of ~ 25% if bred to other carriers.

Julie
Pembrokeshire

nothing to do with your question-but theres a picture in this weeks dog prees of one of the very first corgis-in my opinion it could pass for a lancashire heeler, same markings too

I think that the old pictures of Corgis, particularly pre-war, look like Vallhunds, longer on the leg and shorter in body also quite a bit bigger than heelers.

Kate

try and get to see the one in the paper, its very heelery! even the ears are different, i cant remember what era it was from and i dont think i still have the paper, i was really suprised as im more used to seeing them as you say, looking like vallhunds

dizzy us heeler people looked at that picture with interest.
its a clone of a heeler I had to check the date to make sure it wasnt 1st april. There is either a mix up with the picture used or corgis have been breed out of recognition and we ended up with the original goodie"s.
Funny the dog was from Leigh large heeler population there.
It was probabaly an ancester of many of our breed.
Well spotted Dizzy.

Certainly no mix up with the picturein the dog world, but whether it was an incorrect caption of years ago who knows, but the area makes one wonder if that is where the split occured between heelers and Corgis!

:o-------how you keeping heelerkay. :)

Thankyou all for the responses. I will mention the idea of heeler/corgi likness "in the beginning" to my friend. I thought the blue eye was a recessive coming out also, have to ask if the dog has a lot of white on the face though.