Blue eyes? - Page 1

Do GSD's have blue eyes if they are liver coated?

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=2962108-doc-holiday-von-frieden
 

A German shepherd dog can have blue eyes if the dog is a bald face panda, meaning that their face is completely white or almost completely white.

Did someone put husky or australian shepherd blood in there somewhere then to get the blue eyes? Panda? Sounds like 'designer' colors to me. What is the purpose of propagating non standard coats and eye color anyway?

Nature Dragon : Money !!! (Attracting customers who care more for the 'novel' than the regular variety.) Or the sort of mentality that cannot leave anything alone without wanting to change it to what they see as preferable.

Grays Home: What part of the German Shepherd Dog breed Standard allows for blue eyes or white faces ???

A Liver dog should still have brown eyes; some in practice are actually so light they are yellow, but that is just part of the problem with producing the dilute colours.

Hund,

I don't think that's what Grays Home was talking about. I think they are just referring to the OP question. Or in the event the dog is not to standard.

Wow so people pay money for non standard coloring? I was thinking these would be rescue or shelter or craigslist dogs. I suppose like the designer dog breeds, people pay way too much for the designer colors too huh. Hundmutter, if people will pay for it, it will be produced, you are right.

NatureDragon, the Panda gene has been thoroughly investigated, and was proved to be a mutation that arose in a single dog (Frankie) that was the offspring of two registered German Shepherds. It's a dominant gene, and is lethal in its homozygous form - there are no double Pandas, all are heterozygous for the Panda gene.

There are other instances of Panda shepherds having been born, but breeders of these dogs were dedicated to the breed standard, and neutered them and sold them as pets. In the old days, these pups would have just quietly 'disappeared', if you get what I mean.

But yeah, if an animal has a white patch next to an eye, it's quite common for the eye to be blue instead of brown. I've often seen it with horses, too.

Nature Dragon, then you would not believe the market there is in the UK for pets for 'fluffy puppy syndrome' people who would not otherwise know one end of a GSD from the other; nor would you probably credit the number of BYB pet-producer kennels that exist purely to fulfil that market. They almost never work/show/otherwise compete with or exhibit their stock, many do no health tests. But many KC Register the pups, because they can charge a bit more for even pups of non-standard coats and colours that they can say are Registered. There are just as many 'breeders' who don't, though; if you add together the numbers of such puppies that are recorded as being produced, just through Registration records, to a similar quantity of unregistered/unrecorded pups each quarter, it is possible to see how large a number of young dogs are getting into the hands of amateurs, based on their 'look' more than anything else. And unfortunately if you look at the shelters and various Rescues, particularly the GSD specific rescues - of which we have many - you can see that a great number of these end up being abandoned precisely at that 'teenage' stage when they cease being cute little teddy bears and start getting to be big, lively dogs. Sadly the situation has not improved any through the acceptance of longer coats among the more formal breeding circles; many of the pups produced are not 'langstockhaar', they are very long open coats. These kennels deliberately breed to increase their production of long costs and dilute colours, to have greater numbers to sell; and if that means using dogs that carry HD or Epilepsy alongside the colour genetics or the coats, so be it.

I am not in a position to follow just how much this is also true of other countries than my own, but find it hard to believe that, if researched, the problem is not just as much the case in e.g. the USA. I am just grateful that for the moment at least Panda sales are not 'catching on' here at the same rate as they seem to have been in the States, despite what Sunsilver indicates.

Hundmutter I didn't realize you had the puppy mill/BYB problem as bad in UK..I know it's in USA a lot, but I didn't think it would be in UK. I think it would improve if AKC didn't make it so easy to give a dog full registration. Albino doberman pinschers are required to have Z number on their registration but they can still be registered, just not shown in conformation.

"despite what Sunsilver indicates."

Hund, I think you misunderstood me. I know Pandas have become a big thing in the States, yes. But prior to Frankie, they weren't, though long-time breeders sometimes could remember one popping up in a litter, and either being culled or sold as a pet.

I DO remember that when Frankie was first mentioned on this board, many people INSISTED the dog couldn't possibly be purebred, and another dog must have hopped the fence, and mated with her. Of course, genetic testing proved this was wrong.

I look at some of the Pandas advertised for sale now, and certainly go "hmmm...wonder just what genetic testing would show on THAT dog!"  If they ARE purebred, they certainly aren't well bred!