Many have expressed an analogy between an artist's work to reflect true beauty and a dog breeder to create the ideal animal, who would express the breeder's ideal characteristics of his or her breed.

In horticulture a creation of any new type of plant takes a scientific formula as: first, analyze the end results desired; second, how to best achieve this; third, what special qualities have been already perfected and can be incorporated.  Sturdiness, size and even color can be useful; it takes careful pollenization and repollenizations to create a "dream".

This "dream", is manufactured, if you will, created by the knowledgeable use of ancestors to combine their most desirable characteristics in a glorious plant.  We can do the same in the breeding of dogs with a lot of studying pedigrees and doing some research on lines that carry this and that.  Not from hearsay but from true facts.

Terms come into play at this point and one must understand these terms to be able to breed and create a "dream".  The Term heterozygous mean dissimilar and in dog breeding this means an outcross with no common ancestors.  The term homozygous mean similar or common ancestors in a three-generation pedigree.  Do not look for miracles past three generations as the strain is weakened each generation.  Many times throwbacks can occur and the whimsies of nature can always come up and give us a boot.

Many people use the outcross way of breeding and in doing so do not set a type for themselves nor can they pull from this type of breeding.  You can get a whole litter that does not resemble one another.  People usually do this to produce their so-called "flyer".  What they fail to remember is that flyers cannot reproduce them selves because they have no common ancestors to pull from.  They are an outcross product and they produce an outcross product.

To use a formula: a dominant" A" bred to a dominant" A" (AA), which would be relating traits that are homozygous.  Relating "A" to "a" (Aa) would be heterozygous and thus a hybrid or outcross relationship.   If you take your dog and bitch's pedigree and mark them with these letters you can line breed with great success.  Now, lets look at this picture.  We have a dominant head and top line, bred to a dominant low-stationed body and tail set.  By rights if these dogs are related in the first three generations you should get a litter predominantly with the same traits.

Within a breed, we must seek out and use the genes from the gene pool of the parents, and their ancestors, which have been transmitted to their get to the greatest advantage of a line.  Here we must turn to Abbot Gregor Mendel's Law of Inheritance and Expectations.  Mendel proved his hypothesis: that a living organism creates other living organisms, and that the gene is the unit of inheritance.  Second, he separated these genes into two categories, dominant and recessive.  The dominant gene takes over and pushes back the recessive, burying it.  However, the recessive will emerge eventually when least expected, usually because a similar gene appears in the opposite sex.  This means when you outcross you can bring up some recessive you didn't know about in a line.  Many people who are not familiar with genetic terminology use these term incorrectly.  A dominant is dominant to recessive and a recessive is recessive to a dominant.

When Mendel's Law came about, out went the cliché, like begets like.  So, the third and trickiest aspect of his law is the premise that the phenotype is not necessarily the same as the genotype.  Meanings:  phenotype: the visible properties of an organism.  Genotype is the genetic construction of the organism.  Or: phenotype is what you see and genotype is what it has inside. This is why when a quality bitch is bred to a quality dog and the puppies do not equal the quality of the parents we have overlooked the influences of the ancestors.  Ancestors in the first three generations are extremely powerful and this is often not understood.  It is true that both parents transmit an equal number of genes to each puppy in a litter, but the selection is random.  There is no guarantee that the puppies have inherited the homozygous (similar) traits that duplicate phenotype (visible) traits of the parents.

Mendel found that no matter how long the hereditary units are in association with other units, or determiners, in an individual, they are completely unaffected and will emerge from any union as untouched and distinct as they were originally.

So, by checking out breeding against some rules which govern the genetic activity of both dominant characters we can be reasonably sure that a dominant:
1. Does not skip a generation
2. Will affect a relatively large number of progeny
3. Will be carried only by affected individuals
4. Will minimize the danger of continuing undesirable characteristics in the strain.

Recessive Genes:
1. May skip one or more generations
2. On an average a relatively small percentage of individuals in a strain carry the trait
3. Only individuals carrying only one determiner can be ascertained only by mating
4. The trait must come down from both sire and dam.

With the knowledge of the rules that apply to dominant and recessive traits, you can, with a little diligent detective work, gradually breed true.  Of course, this formula can be enhanced by line breeding from dominant stock.

Now, about Blue Merles- take the above knowledge and let's put it to work.
     
To breed clear blue merles one must research the ancestors that produced the blacks we use and the merles we breed.  Those who prefer dark or brown in their merles use no formula, except black to blue and that is a given.

Blacks must be black or gray undercoated and not have excessive brown on them or excessive brindle points.

Most often there are blacks, which are really brindles being used as sires or dams for blue merles.  This is due to the fact that some breeders are not recognizing they are brindles.  Very dark brindles are called "black brindles" in some circles.

When these "black brindles" are used you get muddy merles or dark merles.  Many times when these merles are bred to normal blacks they can produce reds or brindles and everyone is surprised and in awe.  This has happened on many occasions in our breed.

A clear blue merle puppy is born very light blue almost white and they will be clear merles at maturity.

There is no shortage of true blacks in Cardigans.  There is a lack of using so and so's dog who is black for political reasons or God knows what.  Then there is convenience or the cheaper dog.  But we have a large gene pool of blacks that are available.

We pick on blues but I feel there are less quality reds today than blacks.  Don't just count what you see at Nationals or the Megan.  Look around and do some research.  Blue Merle breeders stop looking for the great blues in your litters and start to look for the great blacks, they are being overlooked.

Do not breed dark colored blues. Breed your clear merles to blacks that are gray or black undercoated and you will breed clear blue merles.

AKC defines Blue Merle as: "Blue gray mixed with black. Marbled".

They define Brindle as: "A fine even mixture of black hairs with hairs of a lighter color, usually tan, brown or gray".

In breeding blue merles to brindles the only colors that really suffer will be the reds and brindles.  They can be born with blotchy skin.  This blotchy colored skin means they are carrying blue merle genes.  When they are sold as red or brindle that they appear to be and are bred they can produce blue merles.  They are hidden merles. 

Now, before you get your back up and tell me they do not exist, you cannot deny that they have been produced in our breed.  There was a beautiful red bitch from a red sire and a blue bitch born.  She was Best of Opposite at a National, and a group placer of very good type for her day and sound.  She was bred to a True Tri-colored dog and produced red, brindle and blue merle.  She was a hidden merle.  In fact, the red dog from her litter still looms in pedigrees today.  So when I hear or see an odd color or markings coming from that line today I know where the problem lies and it still jumps out.  I have pictures of these animals and there are more of them out there, beware.

Those who try to convince you this doesn't happen would like you to believe that the colors are all true and not hidden.  Yes, in some cases that is true.  Can you tell the true colors versus the hidden color?   I will guess 90% will not unless you realize their color at birth, because at maturity they will be red and brindle. They will be just like the red bitch I described.

I remember years ago breeding two reds together and not getting one red only blacks and brindles and being told this cannot happen.  Well, it did and I had six of them in the whelping box.  So believe me the whimsies of nature are always there to show us the truth.

Reds, blues and brindles have been bred together since the early 50's, but there is no need to do this today.  We have a greater gene pool to draw from and open your eyes to good dogs and forget who owns them.  A true dog breeder will look for a stud to help his or her line no matter who owns the dog.  This is what makes great dogs breeders versus backyard breeders.  You can always build a better line by using dominant line bred dogs. 

I've produced clear blue merles for over 40 years now and so can you.