Jump to content
BC Boards

white factor dogs


Leigha
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 112
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

On 8/13/2013 at 2:36 PM, Pam Wolf said:

Gentle Lake, could it be the bitch in question was white but also a merle? The white factor bilateral deafness could have been just white factoring, yet when bred to the blue merle male if she was a merle then you have a different cause for deafness.

No, Pam, she was not a merle. And she was not white, but a white factored black & white. She was from typical black & white Scottish lines, and the only merles she produced were in the mating to the merle dog. No merle pups in either of the other litters.

As I said, AFAIK, there were no deaf pups in either the second or third litters. It's remotely possible that there may have been a unilaterally deaf pup, though I have no reason to suspect it. None of the puppy buyers ever mentioned anything that would have indicated even partial hearing loss. I mentioned it only because unilateral deafness sometimes goes unnoticed, so I can't say w/ 100% certainly that there was no deafness, but there was none that I'm aware of other than that first all white pup.

The overly marked white merle pups -- they were essentially white dogs with small spots of merle -- never showed any indication of even partial deafness, and IIRC, they were both brown eyed dogs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since we're on the topic of white factoring, has anyone ever heard of or had experience with something called a "white dog thrower" or something referred to as a "lethal white factor" that is not the lethal white assiciated with double merle dogs?

The only "lethal white" I'm aware of is the type seen in horses. The foals are born with an incomplete digestive tract and there is nothing that can be done to save them, hence the term "lethal." Being deaf or blind isn't lethal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only "lethal white" I'm aware of is the type seen in horses. The foals are born with an incomplete digestive tract and there is nothing that can be done to save them, hence the term "lethal." Being deaf or blind isn't lethal.

 

Yeah, and that's definitely not the same thing that was being referred to when I was told about it. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the person who told me this didn't know what he was talking about. -_-

 

I'm still curious about the "white dog thrower" and if there's any validity to that. This bitch did seem to throw white puppies whether she was bred to white factored dogs or not . . .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I said in an earlier post, you can also breed two dark dogs, or two dark-headed dogs, and get deaf puppies, so I'm not sure why you keep focusing on dark heads being okay and light heads not....

 

The only color-based breeding virtually guaranteed to cause genetic defects is merle-merle.

 

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 

Julie,

 

Sometimes it's easier for people to fully understand something when they know what it is NOT as well as what it is.

 

The white factor thing seems to be so confusing for so many people, me included, that it helps me to understand it by defining both what it is, and what it is not.

 

I also didn't say that breeding a white headed dog to a white headed dog is guaranteed to produce puppies with hearing issues. From what I have read, white headed to white headed dogs MAY produce a higher incidence of hearing problems.

 

This does not mean that black headed dogs can't produce hearing issues as well.

 

I also know from what I read that the correlation between lack of color on the head and hearing problems is still under study and no hard conclusions have been drawn.

 

Bonnie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Had never heard of the lethal white before this board. But like others I did some checking and what I understand is the word lethal is kinda misleading. It was usually lethal to the dogs because the owners killed them as white is an undesirable color.

Not that there was anything wrong with the dog just that no one wanted a pure white one so they killed them when born or soon after.

I had heard as a kid that if a GSD was white it was killed but didn't know at the time that they called it lethal white.

Now that's not the case as there are plenty of white GSD's out there.

Jan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only "lethal white" I'm aware of is the type seen in horses. The foals are born with an incomplete digestive tract and there is nothing that can be done to save them, hence the term "lethal." Being deaf or blind isn't lethal.

 

Yes, but it seems that many in the dog world have co-opted the phrase to mean "undesirable white color that results in pups being culled". But I think it's misleading because what the pups have is not lethal in itself only in the fact that the breeders don't want it and destroy the pups as a result.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a misnomer to call something that causes people to kill a puppy lethal. It is not how the scientific community refers to it. Lethal white means that the condition itself causes death. We can call it anything we like and if it catches on then that is what it's called, but it isn't really what it is. I think that is what happened here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, but it seems that many in the dog world have co-opted the phrase to mean "undesirable white color that results in pups being culled". But I think it's misleading because what the pups have is not lethal in itself only in the fact that the breeders don't want it and destroy the pups as a result.

 

 

It is a misnomer to call something that causes people to kill a puppy lethal. It is not how the scientific community refers to it. Lethal white means that the condition itself causes death. We can call it anything we like and if it catches on then that is what it's called, but it isn't really what it is. I think that is what happened here.

 

I wonder, though, if there may not be something more behind it than simply culling for an unwanted color.

 

I know of a family of border collies in which there's a high incidence of white dogs and overly marked whites. At least 2 of the white dogs from one litter are congenitally, unilaterally deaf, and one of them was born with an atrophied, non-functional kidney. He's also had more than average other health problems.

 

This is pure specualtion on my part, but it's made me wonder if there might be some correllation between congenital deafness and visual problems in white dogs and other organ system issues that may have caused a disproportionate number of white dogs to die as pups, or at least not to have thrived.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you'd need a much larger sample to conclude anything. There are a lot of white and piebald dogs out there that appear to be perfectly healthy.

 

I recently encountered an issue where the male pups in a litter had congenital defects, but not the females. Sort of suggests something sex linked, but the newaurologist involved with one of the pups refused to make that connection based on so little data(these were pups for which white was't an issue--just an example of an expert not willing to suggest a correlation based on a small sample or anecdotal "evidence."

 

As I noted earlier at least some people think red dogs won't hold up and that white dogs would be challenged by the sheep more often, so neither color was popular among shepherds. Just as with merles I'd speculate that those colors simply weren't chosen rather than that they had health issues and so failed to thrive.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Or the few examples of working dogs of the rarer colors did not work the way shepherds wanted and they drew the conclusion that ALL dogs of that rare color will be poor workers; in much the same way that:

 

 

there might be some correllation between congenital deafness and visual problems in white dogs and other organ system issues that may have caused a disproportionate number of white dogs to die as pups, or at least not to have thrived

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had always assumed Yankee was white factored, but for all the wrong reasons :) this is a great thread and I am sure I am not the only one who learned a lot. Yankee has always had a line a white hairs that runs over his hips, would have never guessed that and the white on the back legs was the determining factor :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you'd need a much larger sample to conclude anything.

 

Of course . . . but I didn't say anything about having drawn any conclusions. I was simply speculating that there might have been something behind it somewhere.

 

There's a world of difference between specualting and concluding . . . but then some people just seem to like to pick nits. :huh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had always assumed Yankee was white factored, but for all the wrong reasons :) this is a great thread and I am sure I am not the only one who learned a lot. Yankee has always had a line a white hairs that runs over his hips, would have never guessed that and the white on the back legs was the determining factor :D

Completely agree. Gret is basically a "normal" colored border collie, so I would've never guessed she was white factored. But, plain as day she has white running all the way up the inside of her back legs and over her belly. I've learned so much from reading these posts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry if you think it's nitpicking GenteLake, but that sort of speculation just doesn't make sense to me from a scientific standpoint given the number of healthy white/white factored dogs in existence today. You are of course free to speculate all you want, but my disagreement doesn't make me a nitpicker, IMO. If people are trying to learn about the implications of having a white or white factored dog they ought to hear more than one opinion. But whatever.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if it's the same or not, but there are three kinds of Lassie Collies commonly referred to as "whites". One of them is nearly extinct. There is the white dog with a colored head. This type of dog arises from the intentional breeding of white factored dogs and keeping pups with larger and larger white markings. "White" Collies of this type appear in all the color phases of the breed - sable, tricolor and merle. Some people are skittish about merle-headed whites, because they are afraid of the problems with the double merle. But as long as the merle-headed white is bred with a tricolor or tricolor-headed white, there doesn't seem to be much of a problem. They don't typically breed merle to sable because sable-merle is disqualified (if identified) in the show ring, and because sables produced by a merle to sable breeding are often washed-out looking.

 

There's the double merle, which is all white with bluish/colorless eyes and little or no pigment around the nose/eyes. This type of dog arises from the intentional breeding of merle to merle. As we all know this is a very bad idea, though people still do it.

 

Then there is the self-colored white, which is white with normal pigmentation of the eyes, paw pads & nose. This is the same white as appears in the German Shepherd Dog breed. But they were selected against long ago, before color genetics were very well understood, just as they were selected against in the German Shepherd dog. Oddly enough, if I were to contemplate the purchase of a German Shepherd Dog I would start by looking at white dogs, as they - being barred from the breed-ring - don't usually have the freakish conformation seen in the other color varieties. I don't know what the incidence of hip-dysplasia is in the white dogs, but I have never known one that was blind or deaf.

 

Of course true albinos have occurred - but they are rare indeed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've mentioned before the multiple accidental farm litters produced by a particular sire and dam.

 

I'm told the sire was white with a black head but I don't know anything about the dam other than that she was b/w.

 

Every litter had a majority of b/w pups that thrived, but usually there would be 1 or 2 white pups that would be found dead a way from the dam and rest of the litter.

 

It appeared that the dam had rejected them but why no one knows.

 

Not something to extrapolate from but I find it interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have read somewhere, and I have no idea any more just where, that there are species where the rare or occasional white offspring is rejected by the mother, herd, or pack. Is it because the white animal has some sort of health issue which is not visible? The scholarly understanding was that the white animal, healthy in all aspects, did not have the camouflage protection afforded by the "normal" range of colorations. Therefore it was either more vulnerable to predation or less able to function as predator, or a combination of both - because it would be visible when it was beneficial to be less visible to potential prey or predator.

 

So, in some way, over many generations, did it become hard-wired into that species that a white individual was not a good thing and therefore would be eliminated by maternal or group rejection as an infant or young animal?

 

Food for thought. Or not! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have heard that theory too, Sue, and it makes sense to me. In any social structure where an individual that stands out could be a liability to the group as a whole, it would be reasonable to assume that the society involved would take steps necessary to reduce the risk to the group. I wonder if any studies have been done.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've hear rumors about studies being done on the link between pigmentation and the immune system, though I have not seen any published aside from one on the color of lion manes.

 

In veterinary medicine we often say to "beware of the little white dogs." They have a whole host of problems with their immune system (vaccine reactions, autoimmune disorders, etc). Whether there is truly a link between color and disease or whether they are just really inbred, I don't know.

 

I would not be at all surprised if, as we learn more about genetics, we find links between traits we have previously thought completely unrelated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you think this merle dog is white factored? I'm thinking she is but it seems a bit harder to tell for sure how the white creeps up her back legs. She is also unilaterally deaf but not in the ear most people would expect. The dark ear is the one that doesn't hear.

 

IMG_1063cropped.jpg

 

IMG_8548cropped_zpse7270bd4.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, she looks white factored. I do think that the gene/s for a white head (and increased risk of hearing loss) might be totally separate from the gene/s for white factoring on the body. I see white running up her ear, so suspect that dog has both. My understanding is that combing the gene for merle and white heads may double the risk of being born deaf.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...