Are blue eyes (especially bi-eyes, ie one blue and one brown) not looked upon favourably in the Show ring in Australian Shepherds? I haven't seen too many being shown.

Thank you

If its a merle then perfectly acceptable

From the KC standard

"Eyes
Brown, blue or amber, or combination including flecks and marbling...."

Nothing to say it is only in mearle although it is more in mearles that it occurs...

I show a blue mearle with blue eyes and one with a brown/blue marble eye (they are only occasionly shown tho)

My blue merle aussie bitch has one brown eye and one half blue and half brown, perfectly acceptable. She was shown as a puppy with no problem........

There is also a black tri aussie in the USA with piercing blue eyes and he is beautiful and does very well at shows.

I think with blue eyes, people either like them or they don't........ it is usually a personal preference, but shouldn't be penalized in the show ring.

Gabrielle

i know Aussie Shepherds should be BAER tested - are the blue eyes related to deafness the way they are in some other breeds?

I don't think people BAER test in this country in aussies, but I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong !! :)

I think deafness can sometimes be found in merle x merle breedings....

My girl who has blue in her eye, can hear a pin drop so there is nothing wrong with her hearing !!!!!

Gabrielle

But can she hear in both ears? Deafness in one ear is virtually undetectable without BAER testing, but means they're more likely to have deaf puppies.

I've never heard of BAER testing aussies.  I have heard and read that deafness can be in mearle to mearle mating's but that's when you also get lot's of white on the dog on the body and on ears and round eyes.  I know the blue eye'd aussie I show can hear well! :)

Hi Jeangenie, I am almost sure she has full hearing....... she has never been BAER tested, as like I said before, I don't think we do it in this country.

She is as quick as a flash, does agility and obedience and can work fluently on my left and right side and take verbal commands.

I know the blue eyed black tri dog in the US, has been used at stud several times, and doesn't seem to have produced puppies with any problems.

Interesting thoughts though........

Gabrielle

Any dog with merle is a candidate for colour related deafness though merle x merle is more likely to produce it as the homozygous merle has more white than ordinary merle.  The merle gene in itself does predispose to increased eye/ear defects even when there is little white present.  Dapple daxies can also suffer.  Harlequin in Danes is also a type of merle with large patches of white so at risk too.

Julie

Blue eyes are not related to deafness.  When you breed merle to merle, you may get white deaf dogs, but blue eyes themselves do not indicate deafness at all.

In certain breeds blue eyes are proven to be linked to deafness - in dalmatians, for starters. Also white cats with blue eyes are likely to be deaf.

This contains lots of useful information. The Aussie Shepherd is listed as having relatively high prevalence.

JG - I used to breed persians, and had a white stud who would throw blue-eyed and odd-eyed kittens.    I found that the blue-eyed kittens who had a slight smudge of black on their heads - like a thumb print - were definitely not deaf.   Of the remaining blue eyed kittens, the ratio seemed to be 1 in 5.  

Margot

You'll find this of interest, Margot.

JG, I have just gone onto the aussie health gentics site where I found this on deafness

Deafness is linked to the amount of white and not the blue eye, which is a common(ish) colour :)

Roxanne - I was just going to post the same thing (but I cant do links :) )

C A Sharp is a lovely lady - she came over last year for a seminar on Aussies, and it was excellent, wasn't it?

Margot

Yup learnt alot that day...although the all breeds one she did I was told was not as impressive and alot of people disapointed with the "got to get home before it's dark" so had a rushed seminar, she is a vry knowledgable lady who is in it for the breed and therefore shares all information!

Well I believe her!!!

There is a definite positive correlation between blue eye and deafness and this is because blue eye is caused by a lack of pigment in the retina.  If pigment is missing in the retina it's more likely to also be missing in the inner ear.  This has been studied mostly in the Dalmatian where blue eye is allowed in the USA standard but not in UK.  There is a higher rate of deafness in USA Dals.  Blue eyed dog that have no white and are not merle would have low risk of deafness.

Any dog with white markings is at risk of colour related deafness.  The more white, and the closer to head/ear region, the higher the risk.  It doesn't matter which gene causes the white, it could be merle, white  spotting (sp, sw, si) and white in the cat is dominant.  Merle has the additional risk of causing deafness when there is little white present.

There is also hereditary deafness not associated with colour, in the Dobermann it's inherited as a simple recessive.

Julie

Julie, I can understand that blue eye's can result to deafness with some breeds however this doesn't seem to be the case in aussie's, now of course CA Sharp may be wrong or missed information in her many years of research or because I am just taking information from a site then it can be misleading and not contain the full facts however the website for aussies is used for research by almost all aussie breeders/owners around the world and it states:

"Homozygous merles and dogs which have extensive white markings on their heads, especially on or around the ears, may suffer some degree of hearing loss due to lack of pigment in the inner ear "  Now this is saying that in aussies deafness can only possibly happen with homozygous merles...

>Now this is saying that in aussies deafness can only possibly happen with homozygous merles...

No it isn't. It's saying that's when it's more likely. Both parents will have passed on the gene for this puppy to be affected - so all merles, whether or not they're homozygous, should be BAER tested to discover whether they're likely to pass on the gene.

Yep, agree with JG.  There's lots of reaserch on this.  If you do a search for authors Strain and Cattanach, you will find plenty of info.

Julie

That link doesn't mention eye colour at all, though. Lack of pigment in the eye (in many breeds) is caused by the same gene that results in lack of pigment in the inner ear, causing deafness. Come on, Aussie folk, has any research been done within the breed to study whether Aussie blue eyes are an indicator of a problem?

It's disheartening to hear people on here are saying they don't bother testing. :(

Blue eyes appear in solid colourd dogs.  I am not aware of any research having been done or not and it's not untill this thread I have heard about BAER testing on aussies and I was always lead to believe deafness only occurs in homo merles.

I'm due to go out soon but when I get back home I shall scan ASHGI again for information.

Untill then...

Did these solid coloured dogs with blue eyes have a merle parent or grandparent which could have passed down the gene?

Blue eye, when not associated with merle or white markings, is inherited in a different way.  It's a simple recessive and occurs in a few breeds.  The Siberian is the most obvious but also Bernese, Finnish Lapphunds and someone posted on CDs a while ago with a Labrador with blue eye, so it does seem crop up sporadically.  This sort of blue eye does of course lack pigment but the likelyhood of it being associated with deafness is low.

When blue eye occurs where there is pigment lacking on the head eg in Border Collies, OES....I've seen it in Bernese too but in theory it could happen in any breed with white markings, it increases the chances of colour related deafness.

Having merle ancestry doesn't increase the chances of deafness unless the dog is actually merle.

Julie

Well I know a lady that Baer tested all the Border Collie pups she bred, (bitch had half white face, chocolate Tri with merle ancestry) and she did produce one unilateral pup. 

The evidence is there with related breeds and same colour patterns being linked to deafness, therefore testing should be done, without it the breed won't know if there is a problem.

Annual eye testing is a requisite of the Breed Society, JG.  Deafness (apart from in lethal merles) has not been a problem in the breed.

There are two basic patterns of the Australian Shepherd - Merle & Solid. Lethal males are the result of merle to merle breeding.  If you breed Merle to Merle, you need to be aware of the Lethal White Merle gene.Simply put - Lethal White is the presence of TWO merle genes, one obtained from each parent. If there is ONE merle area on the dog, no matter what size it is, the dog is a Merle. Breeding merle to merle will present with the possibility of having 25% of your litter carrying the Lethal Merle gene. These pups will be (or soon become) blind and/or deaf.

To be considered sound: (1)Each eye must be surrounded with colour other than white (2) Each ear must be covered with colour other than white; (3) No white on the body behind the shoulder ; (4) No white up the stifle on the hind leg into the body.
  
A Merle x Solid breeding would result in50% Merle pups, 50% Solid pups.   A Merle x Merle breeding would result in 25% chance pups will be SOLID75% chance pups will be MERLE with a 25% chance of a Lethal Merle gene combination.   A Solid x Solid breeding would result in all pups being SOLID.

So really, unless anyone is breeding merle to merle, deafness does not come into the picture, thankfully, with Aussies.

Eye colour has nothing to do with vision, though. Eyerim pigmentation is mainly cosmetic, not an indicator of hearing - I've known of heavily marked dalmatians, with very spotty faces and solid ears, being bilaterally deaf.

Surely, with the evidence pointing to merles in all breeds having a higher incidence of deafness, all merle Aussies should be tested?

I'm going to put this question on the American Aussie breed rings - and I'll let you know the responses I get.   It does raise interesting points.

Margot

I'd be very interested. :)

If I could afford it I'd finance a study testing all blue-eyed dogs of any breed to determine which breeds can have blue eyes without it being linked to a higher risk of deafness. But that's for my big lottery win! ;) In the meantime we have to trust breeders and breed clubs to do it themselves.

I've PM'd you!

Hi Margot,

>To be considered sound: (1)Each eye must be surrounded with colour other than white (2) Each ear must be covered with colour other than white; (3) No white on the body behind the shoulder ; (4) No white up the stifle on the hind leg into the body.

  
As you know I did do quite a bit of research into all of this way back when, but I never found anything that suggested that white behind the shoulders and stifles was any cause for concern (except obviously it would be mis-marking) From what I learnt, no matter what colour/pattern the dog was, as long as the pigment around both eyes and both ears were any colour except white, there was nothing to worry about. The merle to merle matings do have a 25% chance of producing lethal whites, but no pigment can effect any dog from any breeding, and as far as I could tell, to have white eye rims directly effects the sight as well as the inner ear.

Please don't ask me where I read it all, because I spent over a week trying to get it all back when the computer went down, and I have never been able to find it again! The website Rox mentioned above is very good but I did find a few that were a lot more in depth and more specific to lethal whites.

I will be interested to see what other Aussie people think though about testing for it, but from what research I have done, I don't think it is needed, I would have thought that after the hundreds of years Aussies have been around, and even from when they were first brought into England, someone somewhere would have picked up on something that was going wrong by now.

Hi Nat

Yes, as you say, no-one has picked up on any deafness over here - but as you know, over here the Aussies are a tight little band, and as I said to Jeangenie, I do think that 99.9% of breeders test and breed according the the NASUK or ASUK rules and only the very very very knowledgeable breeders would attempt a merle to merle breeding.   However as you are probably aware, Aussies in the US aren't bred as carefully as over here (think Labrador here - Aussie there) and there are correspondingly a lot more merle/merle breedings in order to get the "pretty" colours.   So there may be some people who have BAER tested over there - my breeder friends don't know of anyone though!

If you get a chance, and C A Sharp comes over again, it is worth going to one of her seminars - she's kicked up quite a few storms in Aussies in the US - she's not afraid to shout about epilepsy etc!

Margot

I will keep my eyes open for any news of C A Sharp. :)

Margot

There is ample evidence that says lack of pigment is associated with deafness in dogs.  The breed is immaterial as are the genes which determine the lack of pigment.  The link that JG gave earlier does list the ASD as a breed with higher risk.

Breeding merle x merle obviously increases the chances of deafness but the dog doesn't need to be homozgous merle or merle at all to suffer, this just increases the risk.  Breeding for white markings also increases the chances of deafness.  The more white on or near the head and particularly ears, the more likely is deafness.  More white on the head also increases the chance of blue eye, hence the correlation with deafness.

This site explains the link with deafness/white and blue eye -
http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/Tufts.htm

and this one explains well the risk in ASDs   http://www.jabed.com/white.htm

Julie

Julie - that is exactly what is meant by a "lethal merle" or "lethal white".   This is why you aren't going to find breeders of Aussies over here in the UK carrying out these merle/merle breedings.

Margot

Glad to hear those matings aren't done over here ...but they're not really lethal :-)  The numbers born suggest there is only a very small lethal component if anything.   But my point really is that you can't avoid deafness just by avoiding merle x merle matings.

Julie

>>It's disheartening to hear people on here are saying they don't bother testing. <<

Jeangenie, if you are talking about aussie people, I am sure that if there proved to be a problem within the breed, associated with deafness, MOST decent breeders in this country, would take heed and test for it. The breed has been in the country for 20 years now, and this is the first time I have heard it mentioned properly.

I don't think for one minute that it is because ''people don't bother testing'' :-(

Gabrielle

The thing is, the Animal Health Trust says:

"In dogs, deafness is often associated with the gene that causes merled coat colour, for example in the Border Collie or Old English Sheepdog. Absence of pigment in one or both irises resulting in blue eye colouration may also be present."

and:

"Because of the relationship between blue eyes, white coat and deafness in cats, an association between blue eyes and deafness in the Dalmatian was suggested. The lower incidence of deafness in the UK population (19.8% affected), where blue eyed dogs are not bred from, when compared to the US population (29.7% affected), where blue eyed dogs are used as breeding stock, seems to imply that removing blue eyed individuals from the breeding population reduces the incidence of affected offspring. This is supported by recent information from the US, which shows a statistically significant relationship between deafness and blue eyes."

Aussie Shepherds have both merling and blue eyes in the breed so I'd have thought it logical to research the possibility of deafness. If testing's been done in the US it makes sense to do it here too.

That's really interesting - I certainly had a lower percentage than they seem to suggest - even in the all-white white - the smudge might only be a few dark hairs - but whether that is because they were "pure bred" as they put it.

I never had a white-white mating - it was white-blue, white-cream - and I always had the same sort of lcomprising  creams, whites, blues and blue-creams.

When we bathed Brumas you could find a couple of dark hairs on the top of his head,between the ears - you couldn't see them any other time.    He was blue eyed, and most definitely not deaf - he could hear the tin opener coming out of the cupboard at 100 yards!   We started "testing" for deafness at about 4 weeks, and if we suspected it, we would go to the vet and he would "test" almost in the same way as I did - noises behind, etc.    Most of my deaf kittens went to family members, and survived into their teens.   Those that went to other homes always went with a brother or sister, and were most definitely house cats.

Margot