Clarification needed regarding coat colors
Blue and White Blue and Gray Blue Merle and White Gray and White Grizzle and White There all so similar. Pictures would be GREAT! |
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| LOL!! Nobody else knows eaither!! |
| I've wondered about this too.
I think I've seen the blue merle, though, kind of had a darker grey color(bluish black) with purply tinge. I'm only guessing the color was blue merle, it made sense. It's probably posted on the OESOA site maybe? Just guessing it might be. The sheepie's I've had have went through multiple coat color changes. But I wouldn't have a clue what color they would have been considered to be "technically speaking". |
gromingodess wrote: LOL!! Nobody else knows eaither!!
Well, probably SOMEBODY knows, but not me. I mean, I sort of know, and yet... Here's a new one for you. A judge from the UK was going over one of my puppies at the national and commented that she's "charcoal". If I had had my wits about me even in the least, I would have thought to ask him if that is a color designation in the "home land" so to speak. 
I'm on a genetics list a friend of mine runs for another breed. When I see her in class (obedience, not genetics!) she'll sometimes ask "so what did you think about that article?" And if it was something related to the inheritance of color I tell her I immediately zoned out, that in my breed color isn't critical, and my brain is already in overload. She has some choice words to say about my laziness... 
Maybe somebody will enlighten us. Kristine |
| I can tell you that many people say that there aren't really true "merle" OES. It definitely isn't a merle like you'd see on a collie or an Australian Shepard. It's supposed to be more subtle and apparently very rare, hence why no one really can tell you exactly what it should look like!
This page explains a lot about coat color and I've found it very helpful and it does have lots of pictures. It doesn't exactly answer your question but it does show you a lot of differences in coat colors. http://tolkienoes.com/Seminar_Coat_color.htm |
| Very cool. Thanks! I've read the blues can be distinguished as such as puppies, but never seen one before.
I never understood what a blue merle was supposed to look like in OES either. I wonder if they have the same risk of health issues other merles do? Probably should have been paying attention to those color related genetics discussions after all, Tsk, tsk. Kristine |
| Nice site ButtersStotch! Thanks! |
| Thought this might be interesting too, this is the current standard for coat colour used in the UK, here and Europe no mention anymore of Merles
Colour: Any shade of grey, grizzle or blue. Body and hindquarters of solid colour with or without white socks. White patches in the solid area to be discouraged. Head, neck, forequarters and under belly to be white with or without markings. Any shade of brown undesirable. And this was the original standard used in the UK, standard as per H.A. Tilleys book way way back. (By the way H.A.Tilley from the UK was one of the founding fathers of the OESCA) Colour: Any shade of grey, grizzle, blue or blue merle, with or without white markings, or in reverse; any shade of brown or sable to be considered distinctly objectionable and therefore to be avoided. Now one asks has anyone ever seen a Blue Merle Sheepdog? I have not, plenty of Grizzles but never a merle, there must of been a reason it was removed from the current standard.  Is there really a true blue Merle colour in a Sheepdog? An if so, I too wonder if merles in sheepdogs have the same problems associated with other breeds that have the merle gene. |
| How did we come up with the solid body now...I thought splashes were always acceptable...is this a recent thing? |
Thanks for the info and the great site! I enjoyed looking at what might come for my girls.  |
wendy58 wrote: How did we come up with the solid body now...I thought splashes were always acceptable...is this a recent thing?
The UK Kennel club revised the standard in about 1986 from the original standard mentioned in Tilleys book. Splashes are acceptable in the Americas and Canada, due to the original breed standard still in use there, but not the rest of the world due to the revision of the UK breed standard back in 1986 . |
| OK...I just read the coat is supposed to be wavy at the neck too. I have kept a collar off of Nigel because I thought it was getting matted. It seems to grow very wavy at the back of the neck and all down his back when not fresh brushed. His coat is starting to change at 5 1/2 months and getting the wavy grey hairs.
I have never had a dog from an actively showing breeder before, and it is amazing the difference in coats!!! |
| UK standards...ok, well we don't have tails either. How can they just go and change a standard that old anyway...doesn't that monkey with the integrity of the breed?
Most Dobermans we see here now, and Standard poodles are as big as Great Danes. I don't think that is right either. |
| Yes, Lisa - enquiring minds want to know
I didn't realize the change was that recent. Thought perhaps there was a health motive behind it though - the splashes are related to white factor. Too much white is not necessarily a good thing. Not a bad thing in and of itself necessarily, but you'd probably prefer not to see an entire breed drift in that direction. Pigmentation in general can suffer. Among other things. Mind you, I have 5 OES without a single splash, and all but one of the youngest is white-factored. Hm... I knew I should have been paying attention to those color discussions my sporting dog friends were having!
Lisa? Any additional insight? Do they still breed splashed/flashed dogs and risk a greater percentage of mis-marked puppies? Because the inadvertent side effect whether the change was motivated by health or cosmetic reasons is a narrowing of the gene pool and that can have its own inherent dangers. Interesting... Kristine |
| Don't know why they changed from the original standard, my thoughts is maybe not to encourage nearly an all white OES maybe?
There is a standard for the tail, but at the moment not adopted for the british standard, it will be eventually due to the UK just earlier this year having the tail docking ban imposed on the breed. This one is written for what they call FCI judges, it is the FCI standard/description on the breed for tails, it applies to countries that have OES with tails. TAIL Customarily docked or natural bobtail. Docked : Customarily completely docked. Undocked : Unobtrusive when standing. Low set. Never curled or carried over back, with no kink evident. Well feathered with abundant hard-textured coat. |
| Hahaha we posted at the same time, well here, we very rarely breed from a splashed dog,or a dog that has a history of having mismarks(splashes) in the background, we also very rarely have splashes in a litter. If we do want to use a dog that has splashing or a history of that in the lines, then carefull consideration is looked at to which two dogs go together, to not encourage more splashing in the next generation.
Flashes/patching of grey in the head coat, neck, ears, around the eyes etc etc is acceptable. Just for some reason no white (splashes) in the back coat. Geez don't ask me why  We just follow the UK Mother club breed standard. 
Maybe also for the health side of things, not encouraging way too much white, like breeders that produce a white boxer in a litter or a white german sheperd, there usually culled at birth because of the associated higher risk to it most probably being deaf? |
| There must be some breeders on here from the Mother Land
Health makes the most sense to me. Deafness is caused by a lack of pigmentation within the ear itself. I some times worry that heavily white factored dogs with poor pigmentation are more prone to immune mediated issues such as allergies as well, but I really don't know. Now, what about eyes? There appears to be a correlation, generally accepted, between blue eyes and a greater risk of deafness as well. So if changed for health reasons, why disallow splashes, yet allow for blue-eyed/wall-eyed dogs? Mind you, thanks to my little rescue foster, Rupert (who appears to be happily placed, by the way), I now know that blue eyes does NOT need to mean poor pigmentation. Good grief! My dogs should have been, well, some shade of color with envy over that little guy. Complete and intense black rimming around both eyes and the roof of his mouth? Black as black can be. Amazing. Don't ask me what this means or how any of it correlates. I really DO need to start paying attention to these things. Sheesh! As if there isn't enough to try to figure out
Kristine |
wendy58 wrote: UK standards...ok, well we don't have tails either. How can they just go and change a standard that old anyway...doesn't that monkey with the integrity of the breed?
Most Dobermans we see here now, and Standard poodles are as big as Great Danes. I don't think that is right either. The standards change as the use of the dog changes as well as trends in breeding. As needs and wants change, so does the tendency to breed some traits differently. Standards are regularly updated. Even in OES, you can see how things have changed over the years: http://tolkienoes.com/Development_of_the_Standard.htm |
| Ok...that was very interesting. It does seem a shame though that the changes prevent a champion U.S. dog from showing in other countries with a "new and improved" standard. Splashes and tails come to mind here, and they are now not acceptable in the U.K. |
ButtersStotch wrote: [The standards change as the use of the dog changes as well as trends in breeding. As needs and wants change, so does the tendency to breed some traits differently. Standards are regularly updated. Even in OES, you can see how things have changed over the years:
http://tolkienoes.com/Development_of_the_Standard.htm I don't think, or rather, I'd hate to think, we just keep tinkering with these standards just because...Either the OES is SUPPOSED to be a working (herding) breed - or NOT. Just because few do and most haven't for a long time - i.e. most OES are destined to become companion animals first and foremost - do we give up any pretense of breeding for what these dogs were meant to do and change the standard to reflect that? I sure hope not. I've always thought that standards were changed more as a means of clarifying what something means, because people are clearly having a hard time understanding the language, or perhaps because something in the standard was leading breeders to produce not-so-healthy dogs. Those old-time dog breeders who wrote many of the original breed standards were often also horse people (in many breeds), and so standards are frequently written in terms people who don't have a background in horses do not necessarily easily understand. But it's not rocket science - the terminology can be learned. Perhaps it's just easier to try to translate some of these terms to a more easily understood language. I love how Larry covers the development of the 1927 standard regarding the size question. Breeders saw that the original standard was too loosely defined and the trend was heading for oversized and corresponding lack of type. So they tried to define actual size limits (always dicey). And then let their final decision on range be defined by A SINGLE (quality) DOG. (The dog's breeder's response was also very interesting). By the time the 1953 revision came about, the size limitation (upper range) was removed. Maybe it's just me but I figure we'd be better off really studying what the standard we have actually means than tinkering with it every few years. Because the more times you revise it, the more can lost in the translation. Kristine |
Mad Dog wrote: ButtersStotch wrote: [The standards change as the use of the dog changes as well as trends in breeding. As needs and wants change, so does the tendency to breed some traits differently. Standards are regularly updated. Even in OES, you can see how things have changed over the years: http://tolkienoes.com/Development_of_the_Standard.htm I don't think, or rather, I'd hate to think, we just keep tinkering with these standards just because...Either the OES is SUPPOSED to be a working (herding) breed - or NOT. Just because few do and most haven't for a long time - i.e. most OES are destined to become companion animals first and foremost - do we give up any pretense of breeding for what these dogs were meant to do and change the standard to reflect that? I sure hope not. I've always thought that standards were changed more as a means of clarifying what something means, because people are clearly having a hard time understanding the language, or perhaps because something in the standard was leading breeders to produce not-so-healthy dogs. Those old-time dog breeders who wrote many of the original breed standards were often also horse people (in many breeds), and so standards are frequently written in terms people who don't have a background in horses do not necessarily easily understand. But it's not rocket science - the terminology can be learned. Perhaps it's just easier to try to translate some of these terms to a more easily understood language. I love how Larry covers the development of the 1927 standard regarding the size question. Breeders saw that the original standard was too loosely defined and the trend was heading for oversized and corresponding lack of type. So they tried to define actual size limits (always dicey). And then let their final decision on range be defined by A SINGLE (quality) DOG. (The dog's breeder's response was also very interesting). By the time the 1953 revision came about, the size limitation (upper range) was removed. Maybe it's just me but I figure we'd be better off really studying what the standard we have actually means than tinkering with it every few years. Because the more times you revise it, the more can lost in the translation. Kristine I didn't mean for that to come off as frivolous wants or needs. I was more thinking changes that needed to be made for the dog to better do its job or changes that might help support health trends or changes, like if a certain trait was being bred in but was now also starting to cause blindness or something else (I completely made that up but you see where I'm going). I'm not supporting tinkering for the sake or tinkering or changing, but changes that continue to maintain the integrity of the breed but , at the same time, keeping up with health trends or other factors that could affect future dogs. |
| This has become a very interesting thread. I just hope the dog I fell in love with in the 60's (Paul Mc Cartney's Martha...of course) doesn't turn into some kind of trend designed breed and lose the look and function of what it was developed for in the first place. A lot of us aren't sheepherders, but even where I live there are herding classes you can always take for the sheer enjoyment of watching your dog do what what originally intended for him/her. |
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