While searching the Internet to verify if corgis come in piebald or not, came fore this photograph:
What nice big eyes you have.
via corgiaddict.com [Image: Samhain Corgis]
Actually, this Cardigan is not a “blue merle piebald.” He’s a double-merle named Casper. Although on the kennel’s website, the people administrating the site didn’t call the coat pattern a Piebald; but rather a Homozygous Merle. Oddly enough he is not the only homozygous merle corgi on the Internet being labelled as a piebald. Ironically, the only piebald Cardigans are all labelled as merles or have merle patterning. The true candidates for carrying the piebald alleles are labelled as “mismarked.” While it is entirely possible for a double-dilute to be a piebald, there are many solid candidates which appear to be a mismarked; when in fact, they are not.
Let not get into the ethics of breeding Merle x Merle in Cardigan Corgis. Although the effects of the merle allele are well-documented in Catahoula Curs and Australian Shepherds, and recently there was an exposé on the show Rough Collies, it is uncertain about the variation in the level of penetrance in the Cardigan Corgis. But let not call something what it is not.
The only concern at the moment is there are people who don’t understand the difference between a double merle and a piebald, and this is troubling. If people do not understand what they are dealing with, then they may not understand any health issues which may be falsely attributed, or what’s lurking underneath yet to rear its ugly head.
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