In the past decades English Bulldog Breeders have battled many problems with a very small gene pool of standard colored bulldogs being inbred leading to major health defaults.
There are a few English Bulldog Breeders that believe that by searching all around the world that bringing the original color bulldog "Black" back into the English Bulldog lines will help aid the health of the bulldog. This has indeed been true when done correctly.
Bringing Black English Bulldogs back into the pool has brought forth many dilute colors of black and is known as the rare colored bulldogs. All colors listed and patterns are now accepted by the AKC.
Palmetto Bulldogs is a major supporter of bettering the breed. Our English Bulldog Pack is made up of almost every color and pattern there is to offer.
Black Mask
Tri
Almost A Decade Of Merle Experience
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Not All Merle English Bulldogs Are Created The Same!
The evolution of Bulldogs has led to a wide variety of colors and patterns. But it is important to choose wisely especially when it comes to merles.
English Bulldogs that have two copies of the merle gene variant, inherited from both of their parents, have an increased risk of problems with their eyes and ears, causing blindness and/or deafness. The genetics of merle are complicated and understanding how to implement this into different breeds with different background colors and other factors require a good deal of knowledge, training, and genetic counseling.
Through the years Palmetto Bulldogs has bred merle Bulldogs cautiously and sparingly with a lot of thought behind each breeding. Every year we learn more and more. We research and follow directions given by our veterinarians and mentors.
Basic guide lines were followed in the beginning of our personal program.
No merle to merle or breeding….
This is the 1st step right direction. Further research has been done recently and there are even more ways to decrease the risk of adverse health outcomes even further when breeding merles, it does entail more testing to distinguish between the alleles than is currently available through popular genetics testing labs.
One of the most popular genetic testing labs Embark that is a convenient, quick and easy choice for many Bulldog breeders including us. But if a breeder is breeding Merle consistently and seriously Embark is simply not enough.
Embark includes this disclaimer on their website:
"Note that Embark does not currently distinguish between the recently described cryptic, atypical, atypical+, classic, and harlequin merle alleles. Our merle test only detects the presence, but not the length of the SINE insertion.”
We do not recommend making breeding decisions on Embark results alone.
It is advised for Breeders to breed Merle to pursue further testing for allelic distinction prior to breeding decisions."
To our knowledge, there is only one lab that is running comprehensive testing on the merle allele. It is not cheap or easy. But well worth the extra expense and effort.