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There are others who are much more knowledgeable on this one, but I believe it is more oftern found in conjunction with the ears being white, as well.

A

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The way to know for sure is to have him BAER tested. I believe it would be more likely for him to be a uni (unilaterally deaf) in the white ear and probably normal in the colored ear, but as I said, only BAER testing (which is relatively inexpensive) will tell your friend for sure.

 

J.

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Ok, I need an education. I know there are baldface bc's so the OP's question confused me but if they have a white ear, they can be deaf in that ear? I know if you breed 2 merles, the pups can be blind and/or deaf so the way a dog gets a white ear is if 2 merles are bred? Is the white ear always deaf?

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A friend has just bought a R & W border collie puppy, his face is all white, except for his brown ear, he has beautiful green eyes, but no pigment around the, is there a possibility he could be deaf?

 

Thanks in advace.

 

Meet Sage. A year old at the end of this month, BAER tested normal at 7 weeks of age. He does have pigment IN his ears, but not on the outside.

 

Sageherd6.jpg

 

If I was your friend I would definitely have the pup tested, for peace of mind and in case he loses hearing later in life (which happens more than people will admit). Lack of pigment doesn't always mean lack of hearing, but a white eared pup is more likely that a classic marked pup to be deaf.

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You can get a white headed dog or a dog with a white ear without both parents being merles. The reason that people think that the white ear is connected to deafness is that in fact it is dependent upon the color of the hairs inside of the ear. If the hairs inside of the ear are white then the dog has a greater chance of being deaf in that ear. The only way to really tell is by having the dog BAER tested.

 

Here is a good web site to read: http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/deaf.htm

 

And Sage is a very handsome boy to boot!!

 

 

Kathy

Edited by KathyF
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There is a type of deafness (congenital sensorineural deafness) that is related to lack of pigment cells inside the ear itself. There is one study showing that BCs who are merle, or have one or two blue eyes, or whose heads are more than 50% white are somewhat more likely to have this form of deafness than those who don't have those characteristics. The great majority of dogs who have those characteristics are not deaf, however. As far as I know, there has never been a study specifically correlating white ears to this form of deafness, but it is a popular belief that there may be a correlation there, just because it seems logical to think that if the visible part of the dog closest to the inner ear has no pigment, then the inner ear might also be lacking in pigment. But certainly it's not necessarily so -- there could be (and often is) pigment in the inner ear when there is none on the ear flap. After all, in a black and white dog, there is always pigment (black) right next to where there is no pigment (white).

 

This type of deafness is total by the age of 8 weeks, however, so if the pup is not deaf now, he will not be deaf. Of course, it's possible he might be deaf in one ear (not necessarily the white one) and nobody would notice, so if your friend wants to be sure, a BAER test would tell him.

 

ETA: Dogs can lose hearing later in life, but that type of hearing loss is not pigment-related.

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OPs last sentence didn't appear complete....is he lacking pigment just in the ear, or around the eye also? I have a black-headed dog, whose third eyelids are clear. It gives him a somewhat "droopy eye" appearance sometimes - we're so used to seeing pigmented third eyelids! But he's totally normal! (well, in the eye/ear department, anyway....) :-)

 

diane

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I have a white headed BC with some minor freckling on the outside of his ears, but no obvious pigment on the inside. He also has the one blue & one brown eyes. But he's not deaf...other than the occasions he's SELECTIVELY deaf when he's doing something he shouldn't. :rolleyes:

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Why pigmentation is related to hearing:

 

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlere...gi?artid=133623

 

"Melanocytes not only provide pigmentation to the coat but also have a vital role in hearing. Melanocytes populate the stria vascularis, the structure responsible for generating the endolymph in the cochlea, and mutant mice with no melanocytes in the stria vascularis have no recordable endocochlear potential and consequently have severe hearing impairment (31, 32). This role of melanocytes in the cochlea explains the long-established link between white spotting of the coat and deafness observed in many mammals, including Dalmatian dogs, deaf white cats, and several mouse mutants: mutations that affect melanocyte development leading to a lack of coat melanocytes also lead to a lack of melanocytes in the stria vascularis. The molecular basis of the requirement for melanocytes has been discovered recently, because melanocytes are the only cell type in the stria to express the Kir4.1 potassium channel, and knockout of the gene encoding this channel, Kcnj10, abolishes the endocochlear potential and reduces endolymph potassium concentration (33)."

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This dog you see here with the bald face was my dog China. She was neither deaf nor blind. She had one blue eye and one brown. She had the "eye-liner" you describe. She was tough on sheep, gentle on kids and a lovely dog.

4dogs.jpg

She was eye tested many times. All clear. For deafness.......pretty easy- hold them on your lap and yell BOO. LOL.

4 very different looking border collies. All gone now .I miss them most. If I could get another like the one on the right- I'd do it in a heartbeat.

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There is one study showing that BCs who are merle, or have one or two blue eyes, or whose heads are more than 50% white are somewhat more likely to have this form of deafness than those who don't have those characteristics. The great majority of dogs who have those characteristics are not deaf, however.

 

Could this be a contributing reason why the "old shepherds" may have culled pups that were born with or manifested these physical characteristics at an early age? It has often been remarked that there are few merles in the working sheepdog world, and looking back at books with old photos of the working dogs, there seems to be a decided lack of white-headed, merle, and blue-eyed dogs.

 

I don't think it would have taken long for the shepherds to get wise that certain appearances might be associated with certain problems (apparent at a very early age, as noted) and "dispose" of pups that might have an increased risk of "useflessness" - especially when it's expensive to feed and raise such a pup in a society where there was little money to "waste" on potentially "useless" pups. I would think that that might well lead to the reduction of dogs with those characteristics in the population, whereas defects that would show up at later ages would be more likely to be perpetuated as those dogs/bitches with those defects may well have already reproduced before the later-onset deafness or other unsoundness showed up.

 

Just a thought.

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As you can see from tha avitar, I have a solid white BC and she even has one blue eye. There is no deafness, except for a little selective deafness once in awhile :rolleyes: She also has no eye problems. She can see a chipmunk at a 100 yards under the leaves. I'm not sure you can use pigment as a deafness factor. Lucia looks like she might be deaf and is not. My friend has a completely normal looking blue cattle dog that is deaf as a doornail. I think testing is really the only way to be sure.

 

As for white dogs not being able to control sheep, it's an old wive's tail. Lucia has been on sheep and they are no less afraid of her than any other dog I've seen on sheep.

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No one is saying that *all* white or white-headed dogs will be deaf, but that there is a proven correlation between lack of pigment in the hairs of the inner ear and deafness (per the citation Melanie provided). That correlation doesn't mean all white-headed dogs *will be* deaf, just that they have a greater chance of being deaf than dogs with pigmented ears/heads.

 

I have a pup who has a mostly white body (heavily ticked) and a "normal" black mask on his face. As a pup, his ticking wasn't evident, and he had a significant amount of white flashing on one ear (which has since disappeared). For $40 (I think) I got him BAER tested. Knowing that he wasn't/isn't deaf is well worth it. I suppose I could have waited and seen how his coloring turned out (his ears are now both black inside and out, with a few white hairs on the outside), but the cost of the test wasn't prohibitive, so I went ahead and had it done.

 

If I were getting a pup or adult dog with lack of pigmentation in the ears, I would certainly have it BAER tested before buying it, especially since unilaterally deaf dogs can compensate pretty well and so such deafness might not be obvious just on observation.

 

In2Adventure,

I guess I'll be testing that old wive's tale with Pip, although since he has a black mask and ears he probably looks much the same to sheep as a normal B&W dog when approaching them head on. That said, I know some experienced shepherds (people I really respect) who still ascribe to that "theory."

 

J.

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Julie: I, too, have a mostly white-bodied dog. Her entire head is black, with a very narrow blaze, so her face looks "normal." Alli, one of Riddle's 18 month old pups, was sold as a little pup, but her owner passed away suddenly when the pup was just a year old. I bought her back, and have been finishing her training for the past 5 months. Anyway, this dog is very different from anything else I've ever worked with--I have spent the past 5 months trying to back her off enough for cattle! Most dogs, after starting on sheep, I just let them find their own pace on cattle, and they always settle in nicely, moving the cattle at a nice brisk walk. I can then speed the dogs up if needed. Not Alli! I am constantly riding the brakes with her--she is SO pushy, even on cattle. She's moving at a nice little power walk, but she has to be so far back off the cattle, or they run to get away from her! So, in this case, the stock seem to be way more afraid of her than all the other dogs. Does this have anything to do with her color? I doubt it. She's just a pushy little chick. :rolleyes:

A

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Just wanted to make it clear that where the pigment cells have to be present to facilitate hearing is within the inner ear (i.e., inside the dog's head, beyond where you can see), not on the inside of the ear flap.

 

Probably that WAS clear to everyone, but I just wanted to make sure.

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No one is saying that *all* white or white-headed dogs will be deaf, but that there is a proven correlation between lack of pigment in the hairs of the inner ear and deafness (per the citation Melanie provided). That correlation doesn't mean all white-headed dogs *will be* deaf, just that they have a greater chance of being deaf than dogs with pigmented ears/heads.

 

I have a pup who has a mostly white body (heavily ticked) and a "normal" black mask on his face. As a pup, his ticking wasn't evident, and he had a significant amount of white flashing on one ear (which has since disappeared). For $40 (I think) I got him BAER tested. Knowing that he wasn't/isn't deaf is well worth it. I suppose I could have waited and seen how his coloring turned out (his ears are now both black inside and out, with a few white hairs on the outside), but the cost of the test wasn't prohibitive, so I went ahead and had it done.

 

If I were getting a pup or adult dog with lack of pigmentation in the ears, I would certainly have it BAER tested before buying it, especially since unilaterally deaf dogs can compensate pretty well and so such deafness might not be obvious just on observation.

 

In2Adventure,

I guess I'll be testing that old wive's tale with Pip, although since he has a black mask and ears he probably looks much the same to sheep as a normal B&W dog when approaching them head on. That said, I know some experienced shepherds (people I really respect) who still ascribe to that "theory."

 

J.

 

I think I said it wrong. I really only wanted to point out that a dog with color has just as much (well, maybe a bit less of a chance)chance of being deaf, especially if it's commom in the breed. If you need a dog to hear for a purpose, especially herding sheep, he/she should be tested before aquiring the pup, to be sure.

 

I also know that most shepherds prefer collies of color. I understand the theory, but I'm all VERY novice at the knowedge about the sport. I do agility mostly. Of course, now that it's snowed and I'm watching my pure white dog run though pure white snow and the only thing I can see is black spot on her butt and a collar, I think......hmmmmm....they might have something on that white dog theory....... :rolleyes:

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