Well - Calico Dog Anyone

I was just skimming through the web and found this absolutely amazing dog... it was in a post in 2008 so the dog's probably long gone. But the coloring is absolutely amazing.

It's from South Carolina so I'm taking it as Catahoula x cross if anyone wants to have a go at guessing the breed, be welcomed. I am very interested in that coloring... looks like a African wild dog doesn't it???

it's an amazing dog... come on people

never seen a dog with that colouring before, very pretty

Harliquinn ..????

Very interesting pattern.

I'm not thinking Catahoula myself, simply because they are merled and this one is not.... it appears to have an unusual pied pattern (or patterns - it could be the result of several different white-spotting patterns in the one dog). Dalmatians are believed to be a particular combination of more than one white spotting pattern.

The genetics of all the spotted/pied/white marked dogs are not yet fully understood. Some have been researched at a molecular level but not others.

There's also a possibility this dog could be a genetic one-off - a Chimera or Mosaic (in geneticists' terms) where something has gone awry in the embryonic stage and the dog shows two or more colours together that shouldn't normally occur - such as a black Labrador with yellow ; not in dogs but in other species - the classic example is of course the male calico or Tortoiseshell cat.

In fact some years ago I saw photographs of a rat that was born with very similar colours and markings as this dog - the global rat fancy got very excited as a Tortoiseshell & White [aka Calico] rat is something of a Holy Grail. Despite many careful breedings this rat never managed to reproduce its unique markings so the consensus it was a Chimera - a kind of "genetic patchwork" one-off that couldn't be repeated.

That's actually a good idea MerlinsMum.

I was thinking something along the lines of incomplete dominance for the markings... a merled pie sort of combination... replace the cream/gold with white/cream and you'd see a more merled sort of dog.

So partial incomplete on c - red - and merle / pied colorations.

I suggested the Catahoula as that was what was suggested on the site where the pics came from... didn't think so myself. The stature is more Aussie/Border Collie and/or Lab/Retreiver cross.


Even if it wasn't a chimera - one in a life time sort of color - it wouldn't matter anyways cause the dog is a pound dog so it'd be neutered/spayed.

A chance breeding of another sort would say otherwise but then you'd need the same person to cross the same dogs... more or less.

Well for a start, there have been no C locus mutations identified for the dog so far.... and as they usually eliminate yellow/red phaeomelanin to a greater or lesser degree, that's a non-starter for this guy.

Red is ee (clear red, that is); other forms of yellow exist in the dog on the A locus... e.g: a(y), a (w), and a(t).

Merling only affects solid black/blue/chocolate/lilac, and I may need to check on this but I think it might only be able to express in the presence of aa (recessive black). That is a gene which is ONLY present in a very few breeds, mainly herding breeds historically, which is why it's not widespread.

Dogs have another form of solid black [or blue/choc/lilac] in the K gene which is the most common solid colour gene across all breeds.

Merling is like a lacework pattern - the dog is programmed to be solid black (or solid other) but the merle gene allows a dilute of the black [or other solid] to show through in patches, kind of like the 'holes' in lace.

This guy in the pics not only has an unusual black pattern, which tends towards the midline splitting of colour (also common in other bi- and tri-coloured genes in other species) but a third colour in the equation.

All together, I really do think he's a mosaic or chimera, and I'll be saving his pics to my HD as an example of what I do believe is a canine example of that phenomenon. I am sure other people interested in canine colour genetics will love to see him!

Whooshhhhhh!!


Thats the soundof this thread going over my head ..lol

You lost me at "Well"!

Actually MerlinsMum is really just explaining general / basic genetics for many dog breeds.

I myself didn't want to go too detailed or seem too know it all on the off chance of scaring away someone whom would have an educated guess with respect to this dog.

I'll most certainly be adding your suggestions to what I've recorded for the dog myself.

Thanks a bunch MerlinsMum.