hi i have a harliquin great dane and would like to know who i contact to get a stud dog for her i am in lancashire in uk and am new to all this and would appreciate any advice or help .

Hi there :) Have you had all the requisite health checks done on your bitch? Most owners of good stud dogs would want to make sure that these have been done before allowing their dog to be used :)

Why don't you Register with us and then you can talk a bit more ?

:)

Melody

Harlequins are the hardest colour to breed and in my opinion not for the first time breeder. As well as getting mismarks you can also get blind and deaf puppies. A lot of these puppies eventually end up in rescue centres.

The risk of ear and eye deformities is only significant when harls and merles are bred together or each other.  Don't know if Dane breeders routinely BAER test but there is a risk of deafness with harls anyway as the gene for harl (acting on merle) reduces the amount of pigment.

When harls and merles are bred together there is a 25% risk of producing homozygous merle with high risk of all the associated problems.  I didn't think this was normal practice in Danes as harls can be bred much more safely by breeding harl to black or mantle "carrying" harl, to produce harls at 25% probability, the same as harl/merle breeding.  There is always a high risk of mismarks in harl breeding as it is trying to match two heterozygous genes together.

Julie

This is exactly what I mean by saying breeding harlequins is the most difficult. It takes a lot of research and knowledge to know where you should go for a stud dog and to know what colours should be put to what. I have had Danes for over twenty years and have bred 4 litters in that time, I would not consider dabbling in harli breeding.