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I agree with you Jason and also with you Nortex. If I remember correctly you haven,t been in leopards long Nortex. I can see you have been learning and you have used an open mind. Good for you. I am not surprised with Jasons answer and I believe almost all older proven breeders of good dogs have bred merle to merle before.As Jason said be ready to cull a couple here and there and whatever you do don,t reg. these pups that should be culled and sell them to a beginner.It,s good for beginners to be careful but when you say NEVER to breeding merle to merle you may have just closed the door on possibly the best mating you ever made. What if John McDill had the never attitude and had not bred Belle to Jug. There would have been no Dixie,Pride,Scooter, and Johnny Reb and a lot of us would have never had the chance to own that special once in a lifetime dog. My male Chug is out of Reb and Pretty Girl. I,m pretty sure both Reb and Pretty Girl were out of merle to merle matings. According to my standards Chug is a standard merle but according to the book he might supposed to be a double merle. Chug produces better than himself a good percentage of the time when bred to good producing females of any color.That is my def. of a stud dog. A dog that will produce better than themselves a good part of the time. The Cain dog John Cox has is out of Smutt and Pretty girl. This is a merle to merle son to mother mating. With the tightened up genetic hunting ability he is a good candidate to reproduce better than himself. I don,t think there will be many pups out of him needing culled. I say this to show that if the breeders that made the matings that produced Chug and Cain had been going by the book these dogs would never have been born. There are a host of dogs out there out of merle to merle matings.Some of the very best ability wise are bred this way.If everyone went to going by the book it would severely limit your breeding options. I don,t encourage going to the extreme and only breeding solid to merle if your goal is producing the very best dog you can ability wise. If you are only raising pups to sell and you want every possible pup you can raise to meet breed standards so you have a couple more to sell I guess going by the book looks pretty good. As I have stated before I don,t raise my pups for the market or just as a source of income. I strive to breed the best leopard dog there is.Have I succeeded ? Absolutely not but I will keep trying.My goal is not and never will be to just produce litters where no culling is necessary. My goal is to produce litters where very little training is necessary as in pups that are as natural as possible.Now ask yourself what type litter would you want your next pup to come out of?

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Last edited by sam kirkland on 10-31-2012 at 10:32 PM

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The amount of white on parents might not matter much. It's a mderle on merle thing.

This deaf pup



was produced by dark colored parents.

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That is exactly what i was talking about. A dog with that amount of white fro a merle carrying breed should be culled. I did not say MM wont produce problems, i was stating that the white is what needs culled.

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A blue eye is not an indication of double merle MM.

How can you get a MM out of a registered ( walker, that ain't even got a mm gene) cross? It comes from a gene for blue eye.

This Blue eye half walker,


Is out of this walker and a blue eye blue merle

Last edited by l.lyle on 11-01-2012 at 12:52 AM

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Lyle it looks like your half walkers sire had a blue eye too, you think maybe thats why the offspring had one? That deaf pup should have been culled at birth for the amount of white on its body and head.No one ever said you wouldn,t get pups that need culled when breeding merles together that show no white but when I do it I have never had over two pups in a litter that need culled.To me when the ability is there it is worth it to me to cull two pups to get 7 or 8 that turn out great.I,m sure every one that bred merle females to Camo Jug probably had to cull at least one maybe two in some litters but look at all the outstanding dogs and more importantly the great producers some of the other pups out of these matings grew up to be.For all I know Camo Jug may have been out of two merles. All i,m saying is I wouldn,t advise anyone to get so hung up on this breeding only solid to merle that they no longer breed the best to the best.If this happens I think it will hurt the ability of the breed in general and no one needs that. What needs to be done as Jason said is when breeding merle to merle be prepared to cull and don,t raise deaf pups like you are showing.If someone doesn,t want to cull for whatever reason then by all means stay away from merle to merle. My tips were for breeders that like myself want to breed and raise for the best possible performance and ability.There are many breeders that raise some of the most sought after dogs that breed merle to merle when its the best way to get the desired ability.I think most people that are in the never category when it comes to breeding merle to merle are well meaning beginners and if thats what they choose more power to them. I,ll stay with the results I keep getting out of my matings and keep on culling when necessary.When I asked the question earlier about the well known established breeders on whether they bred merle to merle when necessary to get better than what they have I only got an answer from Jason Abbott, I know the answer without most of them saying anything because I know the color of the dogs in a lot of matings. Some choose to say nothing as maybe they think it will hurt pup sales. I believe in being straightforward about my matings and what I believe in. When you are producing good pups that start early and make nice dogs word of mouth will get word around most people that are wanting a nice pup will go where theres a proven track record and not be concerned with too much about parent color. Unless your using dogs that look like the deaf pup for breeding purposes most potential buyers I talk to aren,t concerned at all that both parents are merle. Hopefully it will stay that way as Jason said this is the way these dogs have been bred since their beginning the only difference now is there are people wanting to breed them using a book for a ref. to supposedly keep from having to cull pups with excessive white which is fine unless it has the possibility of taking the ability of the breed backward.

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Last edited by sam kirkland on 11-01-2012 at 01:42 AM

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Most breeders stand behind their pups to one year of age and offer a refund, I know I do. I have only had one pup to be replaced. I sold a pup to an older gentleman and later it turned out to be blind in one eye. He advised me of it but said he liked her so much and she was doing so good he wanted to keep her. I went ahead and gave him another pup and let him keep the first one. He was very satisfied and has sent me other customers. The people that don,t cull and don,t stand behind their product will weed themselves out. As I said most prospective buyers want a pup that has a high chance of turning out to be a good one. I haven,t run into one yet that was more concerned about having to cull a pup or two out a litter than the future ability of the one they are buying. It wouldn,t matter if a pup and its next 5 gen. were guaranteed not to throw a pup with too much white if the ability was sub standard it most likely would not get to live that long.

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Last edited by sam kirkland on 11-01-2012 at 01:43 AM

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OK I have only stated afew facts and backed them up with photos. Here is more explaination. The top pic in the series is the offspring followed by pics of the parents , mother in center and sire on bottom.

The Walker female had two brown eyes. The blue eyed pup and a littermate went on to make coondogs. The cross was mine for me and never even considered for registering.

The deaf pup was off a merle hogdog female of unknown ancestry my hog hunter buddy liked and wanted to breed her to one my leopard males. He brought her over about dusk dark and he picked the smaller merle male because he liked smaller dogs. When I got there it was so dusky dark I couldn't even tell she was merle even though it is obvious in the picture in front of the stock trailor. They were not bred to be registered -just hog dogs.Naturally I had my pick for a stud fee pup. I did not want a pup that might not be from tree stock so my girlfriend picked the white one very much against my advice because it was sick and about to die and she felt sorry for it. Dang if she didn't save it and it still took about 3 weeks to figure it was deaf. That was a smart pup. She had it neutered cause she neuters all her dogs. It couldn't hear a car coming so that was the end of that.

I have another series I will try to get posted of a single blue eye Leopard pup that is 80% black and 20% merle. His mom is a brown eyed B&T Lep, no merle on her. His daddy is a browwneyed B&T Lep with a 5% merle spot. My point being i don't think a blue eye is always tied to double merle and can have it's own gene. Anyway, that was the only blue eye in the litter and they all hear and see fine and are about 80% black. No solid white spots bigger than a thumb on any. AND the only Leopard litter I have ever registered.

I'll try to stick with merle on non-merle my self. Even then know I will cull too much white and also to get pups separated and sleeping for checking for deafness.

Last edited by l.lyle on 11-01-2012 at 02:39 AM

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Lyle's post brings up another interesting consideration. Any of these dogs with a little walker dog in the woodpile could throw pups with some white or a light eye that is completly unrelated to the effect of the merle gene. If the breed is ever opened to single regstration more pups with white that are perfectly healthy pups will start to show up. How then will breeders that make a merle x merle cross identify which pups carry MM as opposed to just being a pup where some recessive white pops up?

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quote:

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Originally posted by john Duemmer
Lyle's post brings up another interesting consideration. Any of these dogs with a little walker dog in the woodpile could throw pups with some white or a light eye that is completly unrelated to the effect of the merle gene. If the breed is ever opened to single regstration more pups with white that are perfectly healthy pups will start to show up. How then will breeders that make a merle x merle cross identify which pups carry MM as opposed to just being a pup where some recessive white pops up?

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quote:

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Originally posted by l.lyle
LOL Thats why I think walker would be the next to the worst thing to put in the breed . The worst would be catahoula for a slightly different set of reasons.

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quote:

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Originally posted by MeganAK2AZ
Elaborate on the Catahoula reasons, if you could please? I have my own reasons for already agreeing with that statement...but I'm still interested in more ammunition, since I'm going to have to deny Catahoula breeding requests over and over again in my area...

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Last edited by l.lyle on 11-01-2012 at 05:28 AM

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Thanks for the articles.. Very interesting info.. I have a Lep that is from a Merle to Merle breeding.. She's not deaf- a little light sensitive in the sun- About 75% white with two blue eyes. She has dark pigment around both eyes and in her nose.. I had her spayed because obviously she is not breeding material.. But I sure do enjoy the heck out of this little dog

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They would take down the nose, increase the dog aggression, quite the track, heat up the nose and as far as the coat colors go...just look around in the yearbook and tell me if there it's not already here. This is generally speaking except where it cincerns coat color. That's pretty obvious.

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Right. Those are all the reasons I was figuring on too. I guess I can just keep it simple and say, hey, I'm not really trying for stock dogs, but thanks! LOL You can't imagine the ruffled feathers people get when you say you're not interested in breeding to their Stud dog--or maybe you guys can? Kinda funny really.

Not saying I don't see value in a good Catahoula dog either...but if I had a nickle for every one around here...

Anyway, apologize for getting off-topic! Still enjoying the information on this thread...

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Lyle I really like the looks your dogs, they fit the breed standard well. Maybe you could post some peds. And your right about bringing Walkers or (other hounds) into our breed. Look at the Jug dog. I don't know why people want to bring hounds into our breed, it dose not make any sense to me why you would want to turn Leopards into hounds, when hound dogs sell for so much more money. Why don't you just raise, buy and sell hounds, they will bring more money. And the Merle on Merle breeding, is just like line breeding, its ok once in a while, just don't keep doing it over and over again and on top of it. I have a MM female one third white and with two blue eyes. I have breed her twice to my black and tan Whiskey dog and I have gotten all blue and red spotted pups with no black and tans. They both were great looking litters that have turned out well with great hunting skills and no white in any of them.

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My guess is if our registry were opened a catahoula X bluetick litter, a high % of them would get in on looks without a drop of leopard hound / cur in them.

Last edited by l.lyle on 11-01-2012 at 05:53 PM

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i can tell you right now if the single reg. on leps is opened up it will happen . i been hog huntin with catahoulas the last fifteen years . and i must say the breeding for them was not regulated and the glass eyes and white colered dogs was what everybody wanted . and it has bout ruined the breed with double merle dogs in every line . to the point of what we call ghost merles [ solid or very dark leps ] that are double merle . but in 2003 i started crossing hounds [ walkers plotts and blueticks ] into my catahoulas and i have a yard full of dogs i could pass as leopard hounds .

but the breeder can breed m to m if they know about merle dogs and what to look for in the pups and cull according . i bred one of my 1/2 walker 1/4 cat 1/4 plott dogs to a cat gyp and had one deaf pup out of a litter of 12 . they all made great dogs and people wanted more but i will not make the cross again because in my opinion all the dogs are carrying the bad gene white or not . it's risky buissness but can be done . but it ain't for the amature .

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jason Abbott
I prefer breeding blk/tan,blk/brindle or blk to Merle.But if I have a Merle female and I think the best dog to breed her to is Merle then I breed them and cull what I have to.I've bred Merle to Merle several times and I culled what I had to cull and there's no problem.Don't breed for color breed for ability.They been breeding this way for 50 years and it's worked.Like I said if you think the best cross for your Merle female is breeding to a Merle male than do it but be ready to cull a couple.If you don't have the heart to cull then don't do it. It's that simple.

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quote:

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Originally posted by robert whitten
i can tell you right now if the single reg. on leps is opened up it will happen . i been hog huntin with catahoulas the last fifteen years . and i must say the breeding for them was not regulated and the glass eyes and white colered dogs was what everybody wanted . and it has bout ruined the breed with double merle dogs in every line . to the point of what we call ghost merles [ solid or very dark leps ] that are double merle . but in 2003 i started crossing hounds [ walkers plotts and blueticks ] into my catahoulas and i have a yard full of dogs i could pass as leopard hounds .

but the breeder can breed m to m if they know about merle dogs and what to look for in the pups and cull according . i bred one of my 1/2 walker 1/4 cat 1/4 plott dogs to a cat gyp and had one deaf pup out of a litter of 12 . they all made great dogs and people wanted more but i will not make the cross again because in my opinion all the dogs are carrying the bad gene white or not . it's risky buissness but can be done . but it ain't for the amature .

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Got all four.. just eliminated no non-merel's... obvious to me which one's were double & single... but my knowledge is no where near right compared to the guy who did the study and wrote the article... genetics don't lie... but an experienced breeder is no dummy either... very good point Mike... and a good article. "Educate" I agree...

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I have a Black and tan female. Narrower nose and longer hair. I have had her about two years and seen her in the sunlight, in the dark , wet after a bath and never considered her merle. The other night i took a picture of her on a tree with a flash camera and danged if she did not come out merle in the picture. LOL Maybe it was the ghost merle he talked about but got me wondering anyway. It takes my daughter to get my pictures loaded on photobucket for me to share> I will post that pic when I can.

Last edited by l.lyle on 11-03-2012 at 04:22 AM

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It's very very hard for me to breed the Best to the Best. All I can do is breed the best I got to the best I got. Leopard folk don't travel much, including me. But, if I could see something better, I would not hesitate to breed to it. Or else, I could sit here and brag on my Best LOL.

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quote:

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Originally posted by evercry farms
Lyle I really like the looks your dogs, they fit the breed standard well. Maybe you could post some peds. And your right about bringing Walkers or (other hounds) into our breed.

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cory your mail box is full.

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Sorry bud, i cleaned it out.

All good reading Mike, for anyone interested in breeding leopards to google search, far more information than most of us can even try to use.
Get mentors with experience. For sake of the breed for better hunting dogs........paper and color cant find and catch game.

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