Kuroiobi20134

You're right, I have not provided much information on what we do with our dogs (because that is irrelevant to my original question), so I don't know why that was even brought up. When I say our dogs know how to herd, I'm not talking about some herding behaviors of herding humans around the house, I mean sheep and cattle. I didn't realize I had to provide a complete description of our living situation to ask a question about genetic classification.

Also, we are not affiliated with the AKC, nor do we support it. I don't know where that came from either.

Well, GentleLake, we do want our dogs registered ABCA, and the ABCA does ask what color your dog is. Since we're intending to sell some of our dogs, it kind of makes sense to know if a dog is a merle or a tri merle. That does not make us candy color breeders, and just because some of our dogs are merles does not make them any less able as herding or working dogs. In fact, so far the few we have had have all displayed spectacular herding ability and instincts. I don't even know where you're getting that impression from that we breed for color (and yes, I am able to read forum disclaimers, thanks). My OQ was simply if the dark brown has anything to do with tri or not, to understand the genetics, and I understand from the info provided that it is a different thing. Thank you for those who provided useful information, my question has definitely been answered. The pup is a blue merle, not tri.

Thank you for the links and the information. Just to clarify, we did not breed for any particular colors, we just bred the two healthy adults we have for their personalities and trainability. We were just wondering what to put on Baloo's registration papers, since he may one day breed, too.

I just figured out how to add a profile picture, so I put my little guy as my profile pic. It's a bit small but maybe you can see the patches I'm referring to. You're right, I did not mean tan points. You can see the patches especially around his left eye but kind of all over a little bit. I was also wondering if this is what's called Tweed? Is there a certain percentage he has to have to be classified as a tri? My husband says if they have less than 25% of brown in them they're not a tri. I'd say Baloo has less than 25%, but the brown coloration is pretty noticeable all over his body, and if he takes after his dad and grandpa, the dark patches will grow in size by the time he is an adult...

Hi, does anybody know, do blue merle tri border collies ever occur with the brown coloration appearing as extremely dark, as if they're blue merle and chocolate tri? We have a blue merle puppy who is showing patches of black and patches that look much more chocolate than black. He did have a chocolate litter mate and the dam has chocolate genes. But all blue merle tris I've ever seen had a very light brown instead of the very dark. He has quite a few of these dark brown looking patches but overall he looks blue merl-y. Is there such a thing as blue-chocolate merles?

Thanks for the heads up! I took the link out. I'm still not totally sure, but he does look more like some of the red merles in these pictures. Maybe it'll be easier to tell as he grows a little bit. Red would definitely be easier to explain because both the dam and sire have red in their genes (both parents have one red grandparent each). We weren't aware of any lilac relatives on either side, so we were kind of surprised as to where this color was coming from (although we find him to be super cute).

Hello! This is my first post here... probably with a really dumb question but I just want to make sure Our girl border collie had her first litter 2 nights ago, 6 beautiful puppies. There was a good deal of color variation in her litter; in particular there's one puppy we're not 100% sure what he is. We think he is a lilac merle? In this photo here you can see him with some of his siblings and his mommy. The puppy in the upper left corner is a blue merle (who is showing great similarity to the sire and one of his litter mates when he was a puppy), and by contrast the puppy in the middle seems quite a different shade. Is that what's referred to as lilac merle?