Strange-Looking Dog (Coat Color Discussion)

CrispyCrispy
edited April 2014 in Akita (秋田犬)
What do you guys think about this Akita? He's been on one of my groups.
People think he's a double merle mixed breed, but he looks like a LH Akita (and was posted, originally, as a LH Akita).

My thoughts were that his blue eyes were from too much white on the face/poor pigment... and he could also be suffering from that illness I can never remember the name of (Vogt or something)?

I figured I'd post him to Akita people to see what they thought! No one on the group really knows Akitas well.

Otherwise, he looks like he "should be" a silver/brown pinto?
Obviously, he's not what the breed should look like, but I'm just curious.

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Comments

  • CaliaCalia
    I think the blue eyes are due to lack of pigment on the face, which also shows in the pink nose and lack of eye liner. Doesn't look Merle to me though since the colors are too solid, the edges relatively smooth and defines, and lack the blotchiness that the merle gene can create.
  • lwrothlwroth
    I've had two longcoat Akitas of the same color as rescues and saw photos of the parents. One of the rescues had blue eyes and one had one half-blue eye. Their nose pigment and eyer rims were black, however. One parent was fawn with a faded black saddle and blue eyes; the other was red with one blue eye. Out of curiosity, I did the mixed-breed DNA test on the two littermates. One was almost all Akita, a little bit of Chow; the other was almost all Akita, a little bit of Malamute. Neither parent looked like a Malamute or a Chow, so I wondered if the testing company was expecting a mixed breed, they found a component that might be similar to Akita DNA. The "merle" appearance is probably just banded hairs. If you want to see photos of the two brothers, e-mail me privately. I forget how to upload photos to the Forum and don't have time right now.
  • lwrothlwroth
    Also, if the dog had VKH-like syndrome, I'd expect crusting around the eyes and nose. Where is this dog? Just wondered if he's related to the large group of related dogs in the Bay Area, California.
  • CrispyCrispy
    I can find out. I did see one that looked very similar to a dog posted with eye-crusting.
  • aykayk
    I saw the FB posting of him as having VKH-like syndrome.
  • paranoidparrotparanoidparrot
    Could it be vitiligo or would he look more sick?
  • Eamon79Eamon79
    Hi all, this dog lives in sweden. His parents are breed standard AA's. It was 8 puppys in that litter with 3 long coates but he was the only one to have white mask and the oher 2 lc had normal black mask's. I was also told that there was normal coat girl and she also had a white mask, but the owner of this boy never had any pictures of that girl. Genetics can do some really weird stuff:) However I do think he is kind a special and very cute:)
  • paranoidparrotparanoidparrot
    Saw the owner posted pictures of the parents earlier today. Genetics <3
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