Double Merle Research Paper

Lakeli is absolutely stunning, but for his beauty he has paid the price. He is a beautiful 12 week old deaf Great Dane.

While we all think white Great Danes are stunning most of them are going to be either blind, deaf, and occasionally both.

What is a Double Merle and how are they created?

A few things to keep in mind about the Merle pattern as you read.
•Merle is a pattern not a color.
•Merle is a bleaching pattern.
•The Merle gene creates mottled patches of color in a solid color coat, blue or odd-colored eyes, and can affect skin pigment as well.
•Merle is actually a heterozygote of an incompletely dominant gene.
• Retrotransposon is responsible for the merle mutation in dogs.

Double Merle's are dogs who have two copies of the Merle gene, are usually born mostly white or solid white, and are usually either blind, deaf, or both.
This means that the dogs coat pigment is bleached twice the usual amount which results in the white coat. These dogs are NOT ALBINO, they do have pigment is has just been bleached.

Double Merle's are created when two dogs who have the Merle gene are bred together. This means two harlequins, two Merle's, or a harlequin and a Merle. It also mean any color variation of the breedings listed above (fawn Merle, chocolate harlequin, fawnequin, and so on.)

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