Panda Shepherd - Page 8

Hi everybody & Uber,
I have been trying to research the pedigree of "Franki" and can only find the sires. The dam's comes up as unknown, does anyone have some idea on the maternal parentage?
Uber the two pedigrees that you posted earlier are they producing "pandas" as I have found a link to the one common factor in both the parents of our little "panda"
I gather that if they are producing "pandas" they are not associated with Franki's breeder.
Sorry about my lack of knowledge but this is a new learning curve for me
I am thinking of having the parents and pup DNA tested and see what is revealed
Our little "panda" is now developing gold above her white socks/stockings, around the cheeks but the gold around the tail has always been there
Thanks &
Please keep me informed

Here's one of the pups from the mother and pups I posted. This was one of the pups from Hoobly, courtesy of the breeder. VERY blue eyes, too, you guys-note(I wasn't aware of that-I assunmed they all had brown eyes)! Those aren't gonna change to any other color, either.
PM me, Inclave. I can provide you some info you seek.

There's at least three ways in which blue eyes are produced.  The most likely in the case of Frankie is that absence of pigment in the facial area has meant that it is also missing from the eye, causing it to be blue.  Breeds with a lot of facial white do tend to have this type of blue eye - Border Collie, Dalmatian, OES etc. 

Yes, that was my thought, too. We used to have a horse in our riding stable named "Patchwork Quilt". Her body colour was sort of a steel gray, with a bit of brown. It reminded me of  what's called a 'steeldust' appaloosa, except she lacked the appy spotting. (Her rump was solid coloured.)

At random spots on her body, she had white markings. This was a lot of years ago, so I don't remember their location exactly. They weren't typical paint markings, either. One was shaped something like the Star Trek symbol: triangular at the top, with two tails at the bottom.

Anyway, she had one blue eye, and the other was brown...with a spot of blue pigment! Other than that, her face was the same colour as her body, but it was clear that some of the cells which produced the white spots on her coat had invaded the eyes as well.

Coat colour genetics is fascinating, and NOT at all simple!

One of my friends who breeds cardis had a pup born that looked like a regular black cardi, with the white chest. However there was a small spot of merle colour on her face. Therefore, the breeder knew she was a 'cryptic merle' and actually possessed the merle gene, even though the colour only showed in that one small spot! (Cryptic=hidden)

Neat info on the horse-I can see where that could happen. It just amazes me what genetics can do.

Neat, isn't it? Who would've guessed such markings would pop up so closely resembling a cousin- breed in another? (border collie-GSD) It's amazing. And it rather baffles me how these marked GSD pups, here in infancy, look SO similar indeed to a Border Collie pup! 

After all, the color, if it wasn't some degree of a 'pattern', wouldn't have to go around the nose tip, up the forehead, etc like a BC pattern. Why aren't there normal GSDs with like only a WHITE saddle? Or, a normal GSD with only a white leg? Those would be abnormal patterns. It seems if a GSD inherits this true situation, they get both facial and body markings-not just one or the other. It always seems to come in some degree of a 'package' deal.

Here's a pic of a nicely bred ABCA/AKC Border Collie pup from import breeding (note the pattern markings of the white) produced by my good friend & family member Richie in late December 2008: 

White up the middle of the forehead (the size/degree of the white up the forehead can vary and be irregular but typically looks like this nice pup), white blazed chest(which can be also extend along the underbelly), white coming up to different varying degrees on the front legs (can be very low to right up into the white blaze on the chest like shown on one leg of this pup and one leg can have white more than the other without it being a fault), just a little on the back feet, white tail tip.

The only DIFFERENCE is (other than the genetic obvious that one is GSD, one is a BC), the GSD will get bigger and probably get both ears up. In a BC, they can have ears up, or one flopped, or both flopped-doesn't seem to matter but they're not as big as GSDs. By looking at the pic above and the one I posted earlier of the BC marked GSD pup with blue eyes, wouldn't you think they might be fully related considering their looks/markings?

BTW, if you see what we call a tri border collie pup (which is a blk/white border collie with tan cheek spots, possibly tan up any of the 4 legs to any degree and a maybe a little tan around the ears), they look even MORE like these "panda" GSDs than the straight blk/white pup like shown above. I used that pic above to illustrate the white markings on a typical BC pup.

 

So, is there a link here maybe we hadn't really noticed prior to this entire discussion? I think so. I hadn't really entertained the though about it until I helped whelp a litter of BC pups (the litter produced both blk/white and blk/white/tan tris-produced by a close friend, not me) and got the honor of watching them grow and then leave. Imagine my surprise when wiping off one of those tri newborns and noticing the tan around its anus, patterned just like what we see in our traditional blk/tan or blk/red newborn pups. Those tri-colored BC pups also had very faint cheek spots upon birth, but within a few weeks they developed very noticeable tan cheek spots that our traditional blk/tan GSD pups have, also. And, out of 2 normal blk/white BC parents, most(5) of the pups in this litter I watched were these tri pups with only 2 being blk/white like the parents. There's tris far back in the pedigree, but the grandparents of this litter were 3 blk/whites, 1 red/white. No hint or indicator to expect tri marked BC pups, but they were indeed produced.
But, anyhow, just sharing the many similarities I've noted between the two herding breeds.

These are not panda GSDs, but tri-colored Border Collie pups to further illustrate what I've been saying and why. Note the tan cheek spots, tan on legs, etc like seen in some of these panda GSDs. 

Thank you, Heather, for letting me use your nice pics!

Another working lines tri-BC pup(not panda GSD). Note the tan up most of the way on the one front leg in particular but foot itself is white.

In show line Border Collies shown primarily for conformation and not working/herding, this light tan tri-marking can appear, but it is more of a richly pigmented RED than light tan as shown here (does that sound familiar to typical working versus show line import GSDs)? There's always exceptions, but the richest red pigment is often seen in the WGR show line GSD.

More coincidence? I think not.

 Border Collie TRI with richer reddish tan markings

yes, the 2 pedigree's I posted did produce a sable panda puppy.
She was the only one in her litter.  big white blaze, white stockings white tipped tail , 1/2 white ccollar and white chest.

Does anyone remember the white female gsd in Nova Scotia, She was solid white except for 1/2 her face was black.  she never produced the color though.