BlackJaq

Yes, I was wondering why these predominantly white, potentially deaf and blind dogs are referred to as "lethal white" when they do not, in fact, die unless put down.

Yes, doubling up on the merle gene is considered to be lethal white. So merle to merle matings are not a good idea. I met a dog last year who was the result of merle to merle breeding, copped the double merle, and had something like 10% vision. Harlequin to harlequin also produces semi lethal white - Mendelian expectancy 25% in each litter. These pure white puppies are usually deaf, and sometimes blind or vision impaired. They are usually euthanised at birth. Or they used to be, until some breeders found they could sell them .... Well, "lethal" implies "deadly" (in horses lethal whites die within days of birth because of a malformed intestine if I remember correctly, it simply does not connect to the anus....) Deaf or blind or even deaf and blind pups are not technically dead unless they are put down so it can hardly be called "lethal"? Am I missing something or did people simply like the sound of it and that is why it is called thus?

Is there such a thing as lethal white in dogs? I've only ever heard of that in double overo horses!

There are also coloured STBs popping up now though not selling too well from what I can see. TBs on the other hand seem to be pretty popular. I agree about the US making up their own rules/colours, it grates on me a little because I love all the German breeds (dogs as well as horses) and they are frequently a target of this behaviour :p Call me old fashioned

These days that could be easily verified by requiring parentage DNA testing for such an unusual occurance. sure- but not when the new colour was introduced several generations back and not recorded accurately ;) This is actually a really interesting topic, there was a study done on the origin of the blue Weims, there are ways of determining some of these things but they are not fast or cheap and people will still argue, even if their position is not backed by scientific findings. I can't seem to find a link to the original study at the moment but there is lot of info here, although they are obviously blue supporters ;) http://www.blueweimaranertoday.com/articles/genetic-study-of-blue-weimaraners/ One in a billion odds make a mutation sound extremely unlikely to me, but mutation is pretty much ALWAYS used to explain away colours introduced by cross breeding ;)

Yes, legitimate, recognized colour that are actually a rarity in the breed are a shame to be lost. As I understand it, the parti poodle used to be a recognized and accepted part of the breed, so this would be a completely different situation to a "new" colour or a colour that ha always been undesirable. In the parti poodle case I would expect an ethical breeder to lobby for the colour being recognized again and accept the fact that it i not if that is the case, rather than breeding with unregistered animals for unregistered pups. In the case of uncommon but accepted colours being lost I am a little undecided. Breeding for them could do the same things as I have mentioned above, limited gene pool, colour over form and function etc. I guess it depends on the genetics behind the colour, a recessive colour would be more difficult to preserve ethically I think. It would also concern me why the colour is so rare now, there could be reasons such as health or lack of breeding quality animals in that colour. I would not use a low quality dog for breeding just because it is a "rare" colour and hope that I can correct the issues later with more breeding, I would rather use a good quality animal with a more common colour and miss out on the "rare" colour.

Sometimes those colours don't exist in the breed until someone uses a different breed to introduce the colour. To me there is no rare colour, it's either correct (according to the breed standard) or it is not. I agree with this. Nothing is stopping people from taking mismarked dogs that they like the look of and attempting to do as the Quarter Horse and Paint Horse people did, start their own breed! Except for money, dedication, knowledge and things like that maybe? Why attempt to cash in on a breed's name when the dog clearly does not meet the standard? When people start to breed for these "rare colours" it is usually (I would like to say "always" but I guess that might be too broad a statement) the dogs who suffer. Other issues are ignored in favour of the colour, people acquire these dogs for the wrong reasons, mass production can reduce the quality of life of the few "rare colour" breeding individuals and the dogs can quickly degenerate to simply a dog of a "special colour", utility and even form can be completely lost whilst chasing that colour, not to mention the gene pool becomes extremely restricted after a while. As you can tell I am not in favour but I try not to judge those who are. It can be difficult to ignore emotions when dealing with people's breed of choice (by that I basically mean me and my breed of choice lol) so I hope I shall be forgiven for sometimes looking down my nose at people wanting to change breeds for no good reason other than liking the look of a certain colour (colours that crop up in a breed naturally are slightly different in my opinion than colours that resulted from cross breeding, especially when the introduced colour is dominant and could wipe out the original colour)

Because that is how breeds are created. Undesired traits are culled.

I would like to say that I don't think a breeder would dump puppies with tan points at the petshop and claim they are x breds but I would be lying.... Not all breeders are the same (quality wise) and when a breed gets popular you often get people jumping in on breeding them for monetary reasons. Those people do not usually waste much time doing research on "their" breed so when things like tan points cropping up happen, they might not have any idea what it is and why. Same with diseases, many simply do not know what needs to be tested for or what is an issue in the breed. If they did know, some would not care anyway. I don't like the tan points much but as they have been known in the breed for a long time they are not a major issue for me. ETA: The thought of a Weimaraner being sold in a pet shop makes me cringe, they can be a very difficult breed if their living circumstances are not right and anybody buying one on a whim without prior knowledge would be bound to run into trouble sooner or later, and they can be BIG trouble lol

The tan markings show up in pure bred Weims occasionally and are supposedly a throw-back to one of the breeds involved in their creation. In the Us they call it "the mark of the hound". I have not seen them myself but they are well documented and generally accepted a pure bred, even in Germany. At the same time Weimaraner genes seem to be very dominant so crosses of the breed can look pretty much identical in shape to pure bred dogs. The grey colour is actually the dilute version of the more common liver/red colour, dd as somebody else said. This colour is recessive and crossing a Weimaraner with a dog of any other colour will make them loose the typical grey colour. There are also "Blue Weimaraners" in the US and much controversy surrounds them. There is some evidence that a Doberman dog may have gotten to the mother of the original dog , which resulted in one blue pup. Supporters of the colour argue that it may be a random mutation, but a study has been done on these dogs and chances of a random mutation causing the colour change are something like one in a billion. Two (base liver) grey dogs can NEVER produce a (base black) blue dog unless this random, very unlikely event occurs. Dogs with the blue colouring can be registered and bred from in the US but not shown. They are not accepted in Germany, the country of origin, despite considerable pressure from Blue supporters. In my opinion the only reason these dogs are bred from is for money, I cannot think of another genuine reason why somebody would purposely breed miscoloured dogs and not make a move to establish their own breed, especially when the colour stems from a cross bred animal, not a natural occurrence in the breed. Edited because I can't spell

Can Blue Staffords actually get Main Reg. papers?

But this seems to be a religious thing? Or it is at least mentioned in the religion?

Nope not true, SRMA has been found in Weimaraners, especially the BYB ones where breeders do not remove diseased animals from the breeding pool. http://www.affieloverbreedclubs.co.uk/SRMA.htm Some Weimaraners can also suffer from too little pigmentation which can lead to UV sensitivity (sunburn), especially around the nose and eyes. Nope, also not true, Melanoma in grey horses is generally caused by an excess of melanin in their skin, not sun burn: http://www.equi-therapy.net/equi-therapy/horse-veterinary/equine-melanoma.shtml

Re: Muslims and Dogs: http://www.islamicconcern.com/dogs.asp It appears that people of this religion MAY be more likely to view dogs a unclean or whatever as their religion seems to imply that they are/may be. Why does everybody always hit the roof when statements regarding people's nationality or religion are made? People constantly make general statements about groups of people, is it suddenly illegal to do so if they are Muslim/black/somehow "different"?

This. 99% of people will approach my dog with their hand raised towards her forehead and if given half a chance, will do that stupid *pat pat* on top of her head which she absolutely does not appreciate. She will dodge and weave and once this happens she will usually not want a bar of that person. She will tolerate them petting her if I make her but I don't usually do that since she has a right to not be groped by every Dick and Tom... Many people will stick out their flippers to pat her on top of her head as they walk past even... I am lucky she is such a confident dog, it's not surprising some dogs will start to snap at people when on leash. I am also having huge issues with children appearing out of nowhere and getting into her space. She is tall and not keen on kids so if she were to nip it would probably hit a bad spot. Only about 2 children that I remember have ever asked if they can pat her and since they were over 8 (which I find is the minimum age she will tolerate) I told them how to approach her and let them and there was no issue. The ones that "corner" her once she will not go near, even for food treats and she has a long memory, she can spot them from the other side of the road even months later lol It seems nobody knows that it is only polite to let a dog sniff your hand before trying to grope it. I wonder how they would react if I patted them on top of their head without any kind of greeting or warning, especially if they do not see me coming....

What if the puppy has an accident in his crate? It will learn to relieve itself where it sleeps and then you will have a hell of a time trying to undo this. Dogs are not hamsters and I agree with the posters who said puppies need to be able to explore and run around. Being stuck in a crate all night and then most of the day sounds like a pretty sad existence to me

It must be because I have never met a dumber dog lol It definitely doesn't seem like it would be much good for working. It's pretty though!

So BC's actually come in blue merle as well? A friend of mine's boss bought one (purely as a pet) and I was convinced she'd been had. My friend is not all that dog savvy so she didn't know whether the dog had DOGS NSW papers or even what they mean but was quite adamant the dog was pure bred and papered.

Insane. that man is a menace! And the coroner in Ayen Chol's case must be mentally impaired. I have read the report, it was hideous. They refused to do an internal autopsy even after finding ulcerated bed sores from sleeping on hard surfaces (concrete?) on the dog! It was obviously in pain but that never even figured into their report, they simply concluded that it was a pitbull, hence it killed that girl! What a joke! It was also suspected to have been kept chained....

I find the price tag a little high as well, have you made any enquiries into average prices for the breed OP?

At least if there was a license required then that license could be withdrawn and the business closed down if they are in gross breach of their obligations (like you know, not cooking people's pets alive). As it is now, Buddy's "groomer" (and I use that term lightly) will go on their merry way and possibly strangulate another dog to death by sheer negligence and that dog's owners will not even be aware that it has happened before

Germany is generally 'tier-leib' (animal loving). But I doubt dog ownership numbers are above 1 family in 4. It's very expensive keeping a dog in Germany, and people take the responsibility about as seriously as they take raising children. (I lived in Leipzig for almost three years . .. with a dog). Also, we have a dog tax in Germany, hence why I do not understand why Berlin would be covered in dog shit. That is what people over there pay these exorbitant taxes on their dogs for, so that the street cleaners can be paid to clean up whatever owners leave behind. I remember living in Munich and those of my friends with dogs would refuse to pick up their dogs' business because they were paying several hundred Euros a year for the priviledge of owning one dog. They figured the money should be used for its intended purpose. I thought that was pretty reasonable, would be different if they were not paying this huge amount each year and had to clean up after themselves instead lol All in all I found Munich to be extremely dog friendly, dogs are allowed pretty much everywhere including restaurants, large shopping malls, subways, trains, pretty much anywhere except supermarkets I don't find Australia very dog friendly at all in that regard and where I live, there is still dog shit all over the place because nobody cleans up after their dogs ETA: To be fair I have to say that Foxy is very popular here in town and since she is well behaved, she is allowed in some of the shops, including the bank and news agent's.

The link seems to prove that you may kill it if it threatens you or your property... I also have never heard of anybody being convicted of "killing a snake" in their backyard... ETA: ... unless it is proved... How is anybody going to prove that "there were no grounds on which the person could reasonably have believed at any relevant time that the snake was endangering, or was likely to endanger, any person or property"? As soon as there is a snake near my dog pens, house or poultry yards I begin to believe that it may threaten/kill my animals (read: property) or me

Property would include dogs. You can not seriously be suggesting that you have to keep your dogs inside the house at all times let they go near the snake in the yard?

Kill it???? Not only is this against the law, but puts the OP in a likely position of getting bitten. Most snake bites occur when inexperienced people try to catch or kill a snake. It is not illegal to kill a snake, if it is threatening you or your animals. I will dig up the legislation if necessary but this is a very common and very false piece of "common knowledge" ETA: Here you go, let that be the end of the ill informed "it is illegal to kill a snake" rubbish http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/npawa1974247/s112.html