Hi

Can someone please explain what can cause the lack of pigmentation and for dogs to be born with one or two blu eyes, or maybe not all the pigment coming around the muzzle/nose?

is it something to do with lacking on a certain gene? the mum or sire carrying too much of one gene??....any feed back would be great thanks!

It depends on the breed. With some breeds blue eyes are an indication of a higher risk of deafness; in others it isn't.

its generally sen in white coated breeds, as this is not generally a natural colour. my girl has one blue eye and is fine. In my last litter i had a girl with two brown eyes but was light merle and was partially deaf. how old is the pup?

There isnt a pup, I was just wondering how the genetics work and what actually causes this to occur, is there anything percific to avoid or to look out for?

well im not sure about other breeds, but in mine predominantly white or very lightly marked coats will have a higher chance of deafness. which is why we dont mate merle to merle. with regards to blue eyes and pink noses in the ring it isnt preferred but accepted. i show my girls and KNOW a black nose is preferred but im a complete sucker for a pink nose. Most breeders will have a deafness test at 8 weeks for pups that they think may have hearing difficulties. was it a particular breed you were looking at?

This might help. In dalmatians we (in the UK - it's acceptable in the US, and their incidence of deafness is higher than ours) never breed from animals with one or two blue eyes.

One of our collies have a blue eye, and a few others in the ring att he moment have one or two blue eyes , one is actually going to be bred from . Its in the standard for us ,  can have one or two blue eyes ... not sure about other breeds

What breed and how old?  Many pups have blue eyes that go darker within weeks of birth.  Also pigment is missing and comes in over the next few weeks.  My pups are just 2 weeks the full brown ones have just got there full dark pigment on their noses this week, the brown and white ones is nearly there but has a small pink patch to fill out yet.

hi there from what ive read it could be a doubling up of one of the white genes which tend to be small "s" genes,it may be that puppies that receive a double dose of the small s,making them homozygous for it have the severe expression i.e lack of pigment and blue eyes.i have a very good book called genetics for dog breeders by roy robinson which has quite a bit on the expression of the white genes.hope this is of some help.roy.

Ive a b/w BC with one blue eye its quite common and not deaf or blind in 1 eye as some people think!

Of course, without BAER testing, it's impossible to tell if a dog is deaf in just one ear (often the ear on the side with the blue eye).

Hi Em,

With OES it's quite common for dogs to have one or two blue eyes and is not usually associated with deafness. One of our dogs had a blue eye that shone red in the dark, and a brown one that shone green. He looked most peculiar coming towards us at night! His nose pigment and round both eyes was very good, as was a bitch we had who also had one of each colour eyes.

My Mum's merle Shelties quite commonly had eyes that were partially blue and brown, good pigment and no deafness.

Our Dogue puppies have blue eyes when they are young, gradually changing to brown.

I suppose if you are concerned about pigmentation, it's worth making it a priority when planning a mating.

Thanks for all your replys, think I will invest in that book Roy sounds like it will make interesting reading, would like to learn just out of interest.