A friend of mine is hoping to get a red ee border collie puppy. I have seen pictures of them & they are gorgeous looking dogs, but pretty rare. I believe the genetics of this coat colour are very interesting. Does anybody know anything about them?

Thanks!

Ive just had a google and come up with a couple of sites (as I had never heard of an ee collie before) but all the pics are of red dogs, can you explain what is the difference between a red ee dog and a normal red? There is a lady on here who breeds red to red, does that mean her pups are ee?

I think that would be referring to brown (bb) which BC people sometimes incorrectly call red.

Most of the dogs people have habitually called red are in fact brown/Liver/chocolate (as in Springer Spaniels, Labradors, Brown Dobermanns) with appropiate pigmentation. 

Reds in most breeds have black pigment and range from cream through to chestnut.  An example would be a Finnish Spitz, and a Corgi. 

no red to red matings will only throw red puppies. These ee reds are a pale creamy yellow (a bit like goldies). As I understand it, the ee gene is a completely separate gene to the gene that give red/blak etc. The interesting thing about it (as I understand it anyway) is that the ee gene will act to mask any other colour being shown in dogs that are homozygous recessive. If you look on the Arnpriors website there is a picture of one of these dogs on the puppy page.

Hi mutts

ee is recessive yellow and responsible for shades of red through to white in many breeds.  It's common in many of the gundog breeds and produces yellow in Labs and Goldens, red in Cockers and Irish Setters etc.  It is also thought to produce white in Westies, GSDs and Samoyeds.  Modifying genes produce the varying shades. 

All the photos of BC ees (known as Australian red I believe) I've seen have been the pale version rather like pale Goldens.  There may be genes in the breed genepool to produce the other shades.....have you seen reds?

The genetics are quite simple.  It's a recessive on the E locus, E being dominant and produces normal colour (black, brown, sable etc) and e which restricts dark pigment and produces yellow.  Both parents have to carry to produce ee pups.  Dogs of this colour can carry any of the other colours on other genes, in the breed as the ee "hides" all other coat patterns...edit - except non pigmented white.

E locus has been sequenced so there is a DNA test available.

Julie

Hi Julie,

I am told in BC's they are called ee reds, though they are all a pale yellow colour. I think we are talking about the same thing, as the ee gene does overide all other colours as in labs (where I believe genetically all labs carry BB or Bb & are black or homozygous recessive bb & are chocolate, but if they also carry the ee they will be phenotypically yellow irrespective of the Bb, BB, bb). Beautiful looking dogs tho'. I was wondering what the implications would be of breeding one of these dogs to a merle (as I believe has happened in the litter that a friend has looked at). Because theoretically you could have pups carrying the Mm merle gene, but would not look like merles. Get 2 dogs like that put together & (theoretically at least) you could throw MM merles with all the implications there. I believe this is why they don't breed sable merle shelties??  Could be wrong though, as I don't know enough about it. Anyone else know??

http://www.bryningbordercollies.com/Sunny

Think this is what is meant
Archer

Hi yes I do believe that there is the possibility of such a pup being a merle

>>Because theoretically you could have pups carrying the Mm merle gene, but would not look like merles.

Yes, that's right as merle needs eumelanin (dark) pigment to express and the ee gene removes all of this from the coat.  As merle is a co-dominant, it would be unlikely to pass through the generations undetected so unless ees are bred together this situation shouldn't arise.  What I mean is, if an ee cropped up in a litter form black x merle you would know that it had a 50:50 chance of being pseudo merle so should not be bred to another ee or merle.

Ay sables too can be pseudo merle as adults but as these are born with a good covering of eumelanin pigment, the merle pattern should be quite obvious before the colour clears.  ees OTOH are born pure yellow with no eumelanin except for the odd hair or spot (somatic mutations) which is rarely enough to show any pattern.

Julie

Here is a link to some pictures of ee reds

http://www.top-sites.co.uk/out.php?link=1581&l=2

yes the ee oz reds are totally different to the other reds.
dont know too much info,but i know they ARE different!

That is because the others commonly called reds aren't, they are browns :D

Don't tell a BC person that - They are red :D

They have brown noses and mucous mebranes so are brown.  Choclolate for those who wnat to fancy it up, or Liver for the old fashioned, but brown is brown :D

The lady I knew that bred the colour called them chocolate or Choclate Tris or chocolate merles where the patterns were involved.

Would save confusion if people would call the Liver pigmented dogs somthing other than Red.

A Chocolate Merle.......that sounds like a rare colour, must add another £100 on the price :D

mmmm brown merle doesnt have the same ring does it LOL

I have seen several so I don't think so :D

Yum yum, chocolate in dogs too.  Is it edable?  (only joking!!)

Slobdog, you surprise me, I though you preferred jammie dodgers?

I've got a brown collie. He's Too Much Brown. Isn't he Slobalobbadog? Hello Slobby, how are you today? <<<waves>>>

According to his pedigree he is 'chocolate, tan and white.' But to me is, and always will be, Brown! :D There is nothing 'red' about him, in fact he makes chocolate labs look pale! ;)

I have a chocolate merle, how much do you want to give me for him? :-D ;-)

Seriously though Brainless, it's no different to a blue merle being called blue when in fact it is a black merle, it is only blue if it is dilute. :rolleyes:

I still prefer just palin Brown as being a more acurate descroption, but then I ahve freinds with dobes,a dn brown seems fine for them.  chocolate Dobes just doesn't ring right :D