What are the health problems with Merle Chihuahuas?

Question

I have heard Merle's have a lot of health problems. What are the health problems this type of chihuahua has? I am very interested in learning about this. Thanks

Answer 1

Merles have the potential to have varying degrees of deafness & blindness. It's also not a pattern that was seen in Chis until the last decade or so & that means they were bred to another breed to produce the pattern & then bred back to other Chis in order to conform to the breed standard.

Breeding merle to merle is what will produce the problems I spoke about, and it's nearly impossible to tell if one carriers the gene even if they don't express the pattern. Many are mis-marked when registered also, so you can't go by that either.

Answer 2

I have come across a few sites that give some info on this. Hope it helps. Wikipedia says if you breed a merle and non-merle the risk of defects is eliminated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_(coat...

http://www.picassochis.com/merles.htm

http://www.tanyastoys.com/donotbuy.htm

Here is a site that disagrees with the claims:

http://members.cox.net/loveschihuahuas/m...

Please do alot of research before you buy a pup. Make sure you trust the breeder.