I feel like a moron even asking this, because I'm almost 100% this can't be, but I have a friend, who has a friend that insists her blue-eyed white GSD is purebred. Isn't this impossible, or is it just not "standard?" I know AKC standards specify brown-eyes, the darker the better.

Can this dog be a purebred GSD?

Some of those freakish Panda shepherd things have a blue eye or two and the crazy that breeds them also breeds whites so why not?

I don't care if they WERE DNA'ed I STILL don't think they are GSDs).

I wonder if Linda Shaw knows her illustrations are being used to illustrate this "breed"?

Law of Entropy/third law of thermodynamics--everything is in a state of decline. That would include pure bred dogs. Information is never added it is only lost. That is why breeders have to work so hard to produce high quality dogs.
White coats and blue eyes would be the result of genetic mutations which is the loss of information.

That would be cool to see a picture.

As far as I know wolves have light eyes. My best guess is that, in humans eye color by the amount of pigment produced. Greene being the least brown the most pigment. Blue is some place in the middle.

I do not have a clue what determines coat color. But it seems to related to eye color. I have seen dogs with different color eye patches have different color eyes. They may be related. White coat maybe correlated with light eyes.

Jeff, wolves have light eyes but not blue eyes. "light" yellow or brown, often they are a medium amber color.

Blue eyes is a lack of pigmentation, as is white coat color. White is generally recessive, color is dominant to white. This depends on a lot of factors however including but not limited to the traits specifically bred for in certain breeds. Like the AB, many times they are bred to be white but color is still a dominant trait.

White coat does not guarantee blue eyes. Nor does blue eyes guarantee white coat. I had a rescue dog, solid black with blue eyes. Wish I had pictures of him still he was a striking dog!

There are odd eyes (each eye different color) and there are blue eyes, and there are pink eyes(true albino) which is a total lack of "natural" pigmentation (tyrosinase negative). The enzyme most responsible for albinism is tyrosinase.

Here is some info on albinism/white coats etc in dogs/mammals. Geared towards explaining white dobermans:
http://whitedobes.doberinfo.com/textframe2.html

This is some info regarding the merle gene which produces blue, green, odd-eyes, and "wierd" eyes which can be a single eye of multiple colors.

http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/Genetics/merle.html

Specifically about eye color in dogs:
http://netpet.batw.net/genetics/dog.i.color.html

There is a lot of information about dog and color genetics in general out there. I started out studying equine genetics, then feline, then python regius, and more in depth at dogs. I am strange, I like genetics stuff.

Blues happen so it seems. In papillon breeding someone recently had a blue papillon pop from a very reputable line which is odd because blue is normally a dilute of chocolate/liver which was not in this dog's pedigree but is possible since many livers are recorded as another color in the AKC registry. This is the first one ever recorded but we also have recent records of albino and leucism.

So it is possible that this B.E.W. line gsd is purebred as much as any dog with a akc number is purebred. Just because it has the number and certificate doesn't mean someone bred it to actually look like its breed and by my count it takes 2 generations of bad selection to really foul up an appearance.

The white Dobes are a form of partial albinism and they have blue eyes. I wonder if the same is possible with that Shepherd? It seems like I recall reading somewhere too that white in Sheperds is not a color per say but is caused by a masking gene that hides the dogs true color.



Lisa

As far as I know there are no blue-eyed GSDs - white GSDs are not albino - it is a masking gene - there is no pigment in the hair shaft making it appear white. Genetically the dog will still be sable, black/tan or black. So the skin is dark and so is the leather (nose, skin around eyes) and eyes are dark. If the dog is white with blue eyes and looks like a GSD, I would guess it is a Siberian Husky mixed with GSD.

molly

 Quote: debbie bruce

Law of Entropy/third law of thermodynamics--everything is in a state of decline. That would include pure bred dogs. Information is never added it is only lost. That is why breeders have to work so hard to produce high quality dogs.
White coats and blue eyes would be the result of genetic mutations which is the loss of information.

Not sure about your application of entropy to the breeding of pure bred dogs. "state of decline"?, no the natural tendency in an expanding universe is to move from a state of order to one of disorder. Sometime going through an ordered state is the most efficient approach to a state of disorder. This is entropy. It is the 2nd law of thermodynamics - the third is in reference to absolute zero.

A movement from variation to standardization by losing more and more genes is the opposite of entropy - mutations in nature are a way to increase diversity and survival. But breeding anything purebred is an artificial state.

The British scientist and author C.P. Snow had an excellent way of remembering the three laws:

You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).
You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).
You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable