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White ears?


Howdyjabo
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Is the problem with white ears and deafness only with the merle crosses or is it any Border Collie with white ears?

 

I have a totally white pup and a white pup with black patches but one ear is white.

This litter is out of a white factored bitch(white with black patches)-- and a male I thought was not white factored.

Should I have concerns about either of them?

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A dog needs to have pigmented cells in its inner ear in order to hear. There are dogs whose outer ears are white who have the pigment inside where they need it and therefore have no hearing problem, and there are dogs whose outer ears are colored who have no pigment inside where they need it and therefore are deaf, so you cannot go just by the color of the ear. But because the outside of the ear is close to the inside of the ear, whiteness on the outside of the ear makes it a bit more likely that pigment may be lacking in the inner ear. This type of deafness occurs within a few weeks after birth and is not progressive, so if the dog can hear when it is 7 or 8 weeks old, then it does not have this type of deafness. (At least it doesn't have it in both ears -- it could have one deaf ear, but if you are alert to that possibility you can usually detect it, or you could get a BAER test.)

 

Deafness of this type is extremely common in merle x merle puppies, and has been shown in one study to be slightly more common in merle pups and white-headed pups (defined as pups whose heads are more than 50% white). But the great majority of merle pups and white-headed pups are not deaf.

 

Hope this helps.

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There is a vet in north Durham who does BAER testing and you can take pups to her home and get it done for something like $40 each, if I remember correctly. If you take them to her office, the cost is slightly more (covering the practice overhead I guess). I had two pups done a couple of years ago, one of which was mostly white but had a black mask and ears. Both hear fine, and I didn't suspect hearing issues, but because of the amount of white on the one pup and the white flashing on the ears, I had it done just for peace of mind. Now when we're training and he blows me off, I know it's not because he can't hear! :rolleyes:

 

J.

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  • 7 months later...
I don't know if this helps..but this is a pic below of my dog who is deaf. She has black ears but is all white. I have a friend who also has a border collie who is also all white with black ears but she's hearing.

 

Yes, but I can see from here that the insides of your dog's ear flaps are white, so it is not entirely true that your dog's ears are black.

 

My white headed dog with normal hearing (BAER tested). If you look down his ear canals you can see pigment inside them.

SageNov2008closeup.jpg

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I have no experience and little knowledge of deafness in border collies, but have wondered how the BAER test was done - so of course, I googled it. Found this, which seems very complete (not just the test, but deafness in general):

 

http://www.dermapet.com/articles/hearing.html

 

Of particular interest is the comment that, as I read it, 10% of border collies tested were deaf. This seems like a VERY high number! Of course, it may be that folks who get the test have suspicion about deafness. I know a LOT of border collies doing agility - and haven't ever heard of any who were deaf (or siblings of those doing it). I do know a deaf Aussie who does agility, and does awfully well at it! Any thoughts on this number for border collies though?

 

diane

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I have three dogs. I have my suspicions that one has some deafness, and hope to have her tested. I am not planning on testing the other two and will not unless I am concerned about their hearing based on my observations. So, if that is any sort of indication, people like me would only take "suspect" dogs in to be tested and therefore it might easily be construed that a higher proportion of dogs with suspected hearing loss/deafness are tested than exist in the general Border Collie population.

 

Now, to be totally honest, I did have two dogs tested as part of a data-gathering experiment some years ago at a trial. They both tested fine but I would never have considered having either tested at that time as I had never seen any indication that either had any hearing problems.

 

I understand from what Rebecca has written, that nutritional issues may have resulted in a lot of adult-onset deafness in working Border Collies quite some number of years ago - at least, I think she said nutrition issues were at least partly at fault. I had wondered after reading Eric Halsall's Border Collies, My Friends (I may have the title slightly wrong) and noting that quite a few dogs were retired from trialling/breeding due to adult-onset deafness. Rebecca gave some input that at least some significant proportion of that was not due to genetics but due to diet and nutritional inadequacies.

 

Best wishes with your dogs, Karen! I hope all turns out well, and have a Happy Holiday!

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