Crowd Pleazer's Gianni With The Good Hair

Everyone says they want healthy, but you deserve more than just good intentions (#PlausibleDeniabilty).  How many times have you heard "well, I know my lines and we've never had problems" or "the parents were health tested" but they never show you the tests and if you dig a little, turns out there hasn't been a health test in 3+ generations. Don't accept less! A legitimate, SERIOUS breeder will take that extra step to provide you with test results and if they haven't done them, consider swiping left.  

Gianni is clear of 180+ genetic diseases.  He's had his OFA evaluations for hips (we're anticipating Good or better);  heart, elbows and knees and trachea (all normal). Like his half brother, he's also Cystinuria 3 Clear!

Note:  Cystinuria 3 is not the same as  Cystinuria 1 & 2... it requires an extra test through VetGen or PennGen. This is the disease that causes kidney stones in intact males and they must be neutered along with a lifetime of care and/or surgeries. It's a big deal! Very few studs have been tested and even fewer are clear. And ask yourself this: how many Merle Fluffy carriers do you know with extensive health testing? 

DNA Color Panel: ay/a co/Co d/d Em/Em kb/ky Sp/Sp Ma+ (258)/m L4/N In/In As/As

Gianni is an "ay/a" blue brindle Merle Pied French Bulldog Stud, carrying cocoa and the L4 "fluffy" gene.  He's an Ma+258 Merle AND he's got the fluffy gene which makes him that much more unusual. Gianni also carries two copies of the Intensity Gene modifier (In/In) and his eyes are a crystally emerald green vs. blue or amber. He also carries two copies of the Saddle/RALY gene (As/As).

The "a" gene also allows for some pretty amazing patterns, especially when combined with Intensity gene (In) modifier, which Gianni also carries. If you're a fan of chrome, you can add Pied into the equation or just have your pups be carriers if your girl is N/N. 

If you've been around a while in the French Bulldog world, you have probably heard about the controversy surrounding the Merle gene, which is in several canine breeds and (for better or worse) is now very embedded in FBDs. There are several debates about HOW it came to be and like any trait, there are "shortcuts" that breeders can take to "insert" a gene/trait into breed. So when we welcomed Gianni into our fold, we were SKEPTICAL. 

First test performed was through Embark to ensure Gianni passed as 100% FBD, which he did. All that confirmed (to be clear), is that he had at least 3 generations of 100% French Bulldog with no outside breed in the mix. We couldn't find ANY photos of his maternal grandmother and as a breeder who likes to know EVERYTHING about the pedigrees of our dogs, this was maddening. And then we stumbled upon a key clue: we found the breeder who produced Bossy II and photos of his dam, Bekki II, an import from Belarus with champion lines in her immediate pedigree. And behold, we saw a dog that actually LOOKED like a French Bulldog, not a mix. And even better, she was visibly the same type of “Merle” that Gianni has, something called Ma+ with a SINE length of 258. 

What does Ma+ Merle Mean? You may or may not have heard French Bulldog breeders talk about how Merle has been in the breed “hidden”. The idea is that the gene can hide either as “cryptic” or it is a higher SINE length but you may or may not be able to identify the gene as present because the gene is not a straight-forward player, meaning that a SINE length such as Ma+ may or may not show as a phenotype and visibly you cannot tell what you’re seeing in a dog’s coat pattern is something other than the dilute gene (d/d) or brindle. And to make it more difficult, it could be deleted by the spotting gene in Piebalds. According to this article submitted by Mary Langovin in 2018: 

“m/Ma+; Merle pattern is muted, not crisp and clear or as well defined as some breed standards may require, most often diluted in color even when d/d is not present and/or a brownish hue may express that is not related to b/b. Alternatively, some dogs may express with no Merle pattern, no dilution and no change to coat color or pigment shading. Blue eyes can be expressed. No pigment is deleted to white.

”In Gianni, the Ma+ Merle  pattern is much like malted Easter egg candy. He has a brownish color or tinge to his coat that threw us off at first because we thought he might have been lilac vs. blue. DNA tests confirm he is blue (d/d) carrying one copy of cocoa (Co/co). He has speckles or some might say “freckles” within lighter patches of diluted hairs on his otherwise blue brindle coat. There are at least three distinct patches on Gianni that we can see. There might be more, but because he’s Sp/Sp Piebald, any other areas that might have displayed are “erased” by the white pattern of Pied. His eyes are definitely affected by the color because while they aren’t blue, they are emerald green with speckles of “confetti”. 

To complicate matters further, Gianni carries two copies of Intensity Dilution gene (In/In), which wasn’t testable until May of 2018, the month he was born. To put that into context, Gianni is a diluted blue brindle carrying two copies of Intensity dilution that is combined with a Merle gene that is described also as diluted pattern with a brownish hue. Compound that with brindle and hide it some more with pied. So if you look through the pedigree of Gianni and view his sire and paternal grandmother with this information, you can start to see where the gene may have truly been hiding. Both of them look like diluted blue (maybe) brindles. And then when you branch off to their pedigrees you find a few extreme pieds and then a lot of splashy brindles and pieds. The pattern that sometimes expresses within that SINE length and sometimes doesn’t is very hard to see in a simple photo. 

What we do know is that the Merle pattern that Gianni has is visibly traceable in at least three generations of dogs that are French Bulldog type and pedigree with lines to FBD champions. This is NOT a recent "insertion" or shortcut to get a pattern.

If you're interested at all in the Merle gene, we cannot more strongly suggest TESTING your French Bulldog for the gene even if you think it doesn't carry the gene.  Why? Because like the L4 gene (a.k.a fluffy), your French Bulldog might not visibly show you what's going on inside like you think.  There are a LOT of dogs who silently carry these genes.  

And while Ma+ might seem very subtle, when combined with Mc, Mc+, Ma, Ma+ (all genes that you might not even know are in your dog's panel) it can create very visible patterns, such as the highly coveted "tweed" pattern. When combined with M or Mh, the visible Merle patterns increase and also come with an increased risk of white deletion that can result in deafness and/or blindness, so it is very important to know what your dog does or does not carry.

For anyone who is considering adding Merle into their program, you can order the SINE length test from UC Davis (VGL) for only $20. You might be surprised by what's already in your yard. 

We believe in contracts. If you don't, probably not a good fit.  This is for both us and you. It's a good thing. 

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