Natural History

Posted in dog breeds | Tagged Catahoula cur, Catahoula leopard dog, coonhound, leopard cur, Louisiana catahoula | 3 Comments

3 Responses

1. on December 11, 2010 at 5:21 pm HDP

   I know that the double merle can have very bad health problems, but I love the idea of each dog being different from the others, and the single merle gene does that.

   12 black labs, or 12 golden retrievers, running together in a field, how do you know which name to yell out if one of them gets too close to the road, or looks like it is going to chase a cat?

   
   
2. on December 11, 2010 at 6:10 pm HDP

   An example of what I meant:

   http://www.wickedlocal.com/scituate/mysource/family/x1171016090/Ask-Dog-Lady-Didnt-notice-I-had-wrong-dog

   But I disagree that dogs smell who you are better than we see who they are, if a dog isn’t looking to find something, he wont notice it, same mistake we make with seeing.

   (There is a movie about giant bugs living unseen among us, called Mimic).

   A dog has to be taught to use his nose, just like we have to learn to notice what we see.

   Lost dogs are often said to NOT recognise their owners right away, perhaps because the dog is too emotionally upset to work at recognition, they are in the survival mode.

   Micro-chips are good to have in your dog – before he gets lost, but having a dog which isn’t just like a hundred other dogs who go through the dog pounds that month helps find him.

   So I would say about the merle gene, it is bad when doubled, but good as a coat color.

   Although there are other people who question what effects the single gene could have in addition to the merleing effect on the coat – a valid question, but no answers from the scientists yet.

   
   
   • on December 11, 2010 at 6:19 pm HDP

     The link addrees should have “the” in it, so as to read:

     Didn’t-notice-I had-the-wrong-dog

     
     

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