..

This is the Dublin x Celeste litter at six weeks old (now 2 years), raiding the fridge.

This time it’s Bonnie Belle giving me the raspberries.

Even in her old age, she enjoyed taking long walks, and we took this one through the snowy trails behind a private school near my house.

Bonnie was a silly little girl well past ten years old and her need for affection didn’t slow down even when she did.

She was a master at using a cold wet nose in the ribs or underarm to get you to pet her and she’d take turns getting attention from everyone in a room, repeating her rounds in order.

From an early age she took it upon herself to be the guardian of the yard, and over the years she made a well worn path around the perimeter along the fence and behind the large hedge bordering one side of the property. She’d often flush a rabbit, precipitating a feverish chase, but she never did catch one.

Although they are unrelated genetically, there are many character similarities between Bonnie and my two current girls. Gemma shares her need for affection and addiction to pets. She’s also a silly girl whom I expect will never really grow up.  Celeste shares Bonnie’s dutiful protection of the property. She not only follows the same route around the yard, learned from Bonnie in her final months, but she also monitors the trees for errant squirrels and has even caught a few of those pesky rabbits.

It’s been three years since Bonnie left us, but she still makes me smile.

The most obvious error is the failure to account for $ 874,952,500 in savings, which is a full half of the savings the report claims TNR provides.

The report lists 4 cost factors: trap/enforcement, neuter/spay, physical exams, and vaccinations.  The cost summation for these four elements is $14,874,192,500; but the report erroneously lists this as $13,999,240,000 which is nearly $875 million underreported.

There is no excuse for such a blatant error.

Now, before you get the mistaken impression that the cost figures in this study are highly accurate because of the many non-zero digits, the authors of the report are disguising how much rounding they have done by not obeying the convention of significant figures.  The budget numbers show superfluous precision.  The numbers reported imply a specificity of measurement that is much higher than the actual data gives.  You might assume that this error is introduced by multiplying a very specific cost per cat (say $148.74) by a very large but imprecise number of cats (say 100,000,000).  This is not the case. The creator of this report is using a very imprecise number for the cost per cat ($180) multiplied by an overly precise number for the feral cat population (87,495,250).  It’s unlikely that such a number can be estimated to within a million cats, let alone tens of cats as the report suggests.

So, let’s look at the data in a way that’s easier to comprehend.  Here, I simply divided the listed costs by the listed number of feral cats, and behold: the costs per cat are all perfectly even numbers rounded to the nearest $10!  This is not the work of a scientist or a statistician or even an accountant. The cost per cat for these various procedures is the one bit of data in this study that could reasonably be estimated down to the penny from empirical data. Yet it’s not.  This is sloppy math and reeks of a PR firm hired to cook up some data instead of a legit study that was commissioned by a neutral and independent source aimed at doing real analysis.

This isn’t a real study as it relies on no original research and fails to cite the most important numerical assumptions used in the formulation of its conclusion, specifically the per cat costs of the options listed, e.g. vaccinations, physical examinations, etc.  This would be the raison d’etre of such a study if it were authentic: to compare costs.  Instead, this report throws in useless citations that don’t actually provide useful data. The one citation that portends to corroborate the $15.7 billion calculation points to the HSUS website with a note that they estimate the cost of animal control at over $18.7 billion.  Not only could I not find this data at the site given, we are given no reason to believe that this HSUS number (which is the size of the NASA budget or the yearly profits of Chevron) speaks to the same costs that are listed in this report.

And let’s look at the numbers given in the report. Do they even pass the sniff test? NO!

The estimate of the number of feral cats is suspicious and unsourced.  This report lists 87.5 million but does not provide any real details on the calculation, just a lot of mumbo-jumo that was obviously stolen from another report.  For instance, why would the number of feral cats be dependent on the “unemployment rate” and if these costs are so carefully adjusted for regional variations why are such crude estimates used?  The HSUS which is sited as a source estimates “as many as 50 million feral cats in the United States,” which is a far cry from 87.5 million.  Since this report is focusing on the difference in total cost and not the much more modest difference in per cat cost, the motive here is clear: make the difference number as large as possible by reporting as many feral cats as possible.

There’s also no reason to find the total number of feral cats in the United States in such a complicated matter if the goal of the study is to do a cost comparison between three alternatives and you’re using the exact same price values for every cat in the country.  Any policy maker can choose which option on the cost per cat basis.  Saying $170 per cat versus $180 per cat just isn’t as sexy as “nearly TWO BILLION in savings!” (well nearly $875 million, but who is counting anyway?).

Let’s look at the per cat costs that this report implies. We have the trap cost of $50 per cat; since this is common among all the plans, we can ignore it for any error here effects all plans equally.

Next, we have a sheltering cost of $40 per cat, a food cost of $40 and laboratory costs of $10.  Why are we sheltering, feeding and testing cats that that are to be euthanized?  The report states that these costs are mandated in many states, yet there are no sheltering or feeding or laboratory costs worked into the TNR numbers.

These numbers are based on the inane assumption that euthanizing every feral cat will require treating every single one of them as a stray, and TNRing every cat will treat none of them as stray.

Equally preposterous is the cost basis of eradication/euthanization vs. the neuter/spay procedure.  Both are estimated to cost $40 per cat. This is preposterous.  There is not a veterinarian on the planet who could perform a spay/neuter operation for the same cost as a euthanasia. A spay is a delicate surgery requiring expensive and specialized equipment, one time use materials, and a surgeon’s skill.  Even a layperson can perform a successful euthanasia with a modicum of training.

Dr. Khuly charges the following retail prices to euthanize a dog at her Florida vet practice:

Catheter: $25
IV Sedation: $20
IV Euthanasia solution: $20

Not only is this the deluxe treatment with catheter and sedation, it’s also the price for a dog. In the comments, numerous people affirmed that the cost to euthanize a cat was significantly less than the cost for a dog given their smaller size.  The lowest prices quoted in the comments were $10 and $16 to euthanize a cat.

She also estimates that vets charge between $75 and $350 to desex a cat (again, much less than the cost for a dog):

Cat spays are priced more uniformly, since there’s not a big divide between the smallest and largest patients. Most are spayed quite young, too, which helps support this uniformity: $75 to $350 is typical.  Cat neuters adhere to an even smaller range: $50 to $150, typically.

So it’s clear that in the retail market the cost to desex a cat is significantly more than euthanasia, perhaps twice or three times the cost.

If we are really committed to euthanizing feral cat colonies instead of running them all through our shelters like lost pets, there are humane methods that can be accomplished in the field for much less than $1 per cat with no need for expensive poisons or a specially trained veterinarian or food costs or boarding costs or any of that.

The most preposterous element of this report is the “supported” package TNR cost, at just $30 per animal.  This figure supposedly relies on the assumption that all the rest of the costs will be donated.  This assumes $7.8 Billion in charity. That’s the entire peace keeping budget of the UN, that’s how much money the US Postal Service is projected to lose in 2010, and it’s also how much money Freddie Mac and CitiGroup lost in the fourth quarter of last year, and it’s the total estimated damage of the earthquake in Haiti. There is not $7.8 Billion in charity waiting for spay/neuter programs and there never will be.

There are between 40,000 and 50,000 veterinarians in the USA.  If every single one of them donated their time to spay and neuter cats, and the average procedure takes 20 minutes, and they all worked non-stop 8 hours, five days a week, it would take over 4 months to complete all the surgeries.  Good luck with that!

I’ve written kind words about TNR, No Kill, and Nathan Winograd in the past and I’m certainly willing to accept a major rethink in policy when the numbers work out.  Advocates of No-Kill do themselves no favor by using this study to bolster their cause.  Heralding such a dubious paid-to-order pseudo study as gospel in favor of No Kill opens up the entire movement to criticism and calls into question all the potential benefits of No Kill and TNR by tainting them with bogus puffery.

It’s a shame that Maddie’s Fund hired a firm to create an interactive fund raising portal instead of commissioning a legitimate study that would have illuminated the situation with good data.

This is Jon with “Sadie.” We don’t know if that’s her real name or not. Probably not.

Can we harness the power of the internet to find this dog’s real owners and get her safely home? It is assumed that “Sadie” was stolen in or around Winchester Tennessee, so the greater Nashville and Chattanooga areas are likely candidates.

Any further leads can be sent to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.  Attention: Corporal Stines. Their Crime Stoppers number is 931-962-INFO (4636).  Corporal Stines can be reached via e-mail: stines@fcsheriff.org.

More info:
Jon posted the following on his facebook profile “opulence”:

Jon ‘incident’ Marcus: stuck in tenneessee anyone willing to wire me money let me know or wanting to buy a dog I stole for gas money le me know!!

FB_Friend: You’re kidding about the dog, right?

Jon ‘incident’ Marcus: No I stole a puppy and put it on cragislist to sell I need gas money to get home me and my friend meg are trapped here
…
Its the one called cute 1 yearold jack russel beagle mix needs a home

Here’s the Cragslist ad:

Cute 1 year old Russle Terrier – Beagle Mix Needs home (Winchester)

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Date: 2010-03-14, 9:31PM CDT
Reply to: JonsanityMarcus@yahoo.com

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A cute, loving 1 year old Beagle – Russle Terrier mix in need of a home for the price of $125. She’s friendly, doesn’t bite and utterly loves children. However, we can’t keep her any longer and she deserves a nice home. She’s an overall bundle of love and fun and will keep you busy for hours! She has all her shots and if you get her, she’ll come with a bag of dog food and dog toys. If you want her, I’m located in Winchester and you can contact me at 216-287-2999 or at JonsanityMarcus@yahoo.com
PostingID: 1644428975

If this wasn’t disturbing enough already, just read the list of causes that Jon is a fan of on Facebook:

I Hate When That Sad Abused Pet Commercial Comes On!
I immediatly look in my rearview mirror when i pass a cop
Bad Decisions = Great Stories
Old enough to know its a bad idea, young enough not to care
I Hate “Low Fuel”
Having Inappropriate Conversations in Public
faceboook creepin….we all do it
Kisse’s and Cuddles in bed
Trying to figure out if it’s a cop car
Watching people’s lives fall apart via status updates and news feeds.
Kitsap Humane Society

Here’s what we know about Jon “incident” Marcus:

* Jon Marcus a.k.a Jon Herscher
* Former student at Solon High School and Mayfield High School class of 2008.
* Southside, PA
* Student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh
* Currently in Winchester, TN
* 216-287-2999
* JonsanityMarcus@yahoo.com /  badmanners@aim.com

Please help find this stolen dog’s real owners so that she can find her way safely home.

The chocolate female demanded the most screen time yesterday, so here’s a longer clip of her refining her acting chops.

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Although you can’t tell from the above video, she’s actually quite the femme fatale.  She’s a bit shy at first, and by shy I mean that she’ll run up to within 6 inches of you, tail wagging and wriggling like a fish on a line and then stop as if there’s an invisible barrier preventing her from going any farther.  Then a few minutes later she’ll be sleeping in your lap.  After lulling you into a false sense of complacency, she’ll nuzzle her way up your neck until she can suckle your year.  Then, when she has you right where she wants you, it’s CHOMP!

I nearly died a few weeks back when she did this to my father. He was cooing about all the attention he was getting and then out of the blue he was screaming “Get her off of me!”  A 300 pound man felled by a puppy that’d barely register on the scale at the supermarket.  Just hilarious.  Now that she’s tasted human blood, we’re pretty sure she’s going to be a man-eating beast. You can see just how much she respects her mother:

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This next one is Zappa, and I’m predicting right now that this dog is going to be famous.  Since daddy is a cover model for the biggest name in dog publishing and mommy is a spokes-model for the biggest name in dog toys, it’s in his blood.  He’s also one of four puppies from this litter who are going to live with professional dog trainers, so we’ve got nurture covered as well.  This dog oozes charisma and the camera just loves him.  He already has the “pose and move” down pat.

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This one is the chocolate boy, who is devastatingly handsome just like his father.  Whereas the lilac female looks just like her mother, this one looks the most like Mercury.  He’s also going to be famous as his new home is with a trainer out in Utah who is planning on using him as her demonstration partner.

The chocolate boy also carries the trademark naughty spot on his nose, passed down from Mercury, from Celeste, from Cowboy.  Quite dashing, no?

But first, as a final test of their bravery, skill, and cunning, they must survive a descent down the Chasm of Doom!

Encouraged by the guiding example of their mother, the puppies eagerly approach the precipice, but are stayed by the magnitude of the mighty abysm before them.

..

Not satisfied to come in third behind his brother and sister and eager to prove his worth, the Lilac Sable Cryptic Merle TriColor Male makes his way down into the depths of Judgment, one harrowing crag at a time.

..

Famished and parched after his journey to the depths, our hero demands sustenance, but is denied satisfaction by Mother Milk Bar.  She is unimpressed with his achievement and most surely favors his brother who made the descent first.

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Enraged, the intrepid puppy vents his frustration on his brother with a near flawless execution of the Reverse Half-Gainer Body Slam and Roll maneuver.  Vanquishing his brother, he finally achieves his place at the top of the puppy pile.

..

Having subjugated his brother, our hero demands his reward.

..

I could have gone with “Serial Killer Whale,” but the death of a trainer isn’t the worst take-away from the latest Orca incident: the depth of human perversion is.  Others analysts have funneled the splashy news event into discussions of how these animals are trained or the conditions of their captivity, often suggesting or battling the idea of abuse.  Are Orca’s really the premier example of a positive-only training approach?  Is it even ethical to keep them in captivity? Will this just make them more popular?

But what caught my attention is that this is the third time Tilikum has been implicated in the death of a human: two trainers and a midnight trespasser. Well that last one intrigued me: what sort of weirdo [pictured at left] would be literally caught dead with an Orca in the middle of the night?  After a little research it gets worse, the stiff was found naked, on top of the whale.  Now there’s really no innocent way to write this story given the multiple levels of intentional illegal and inane decisions “victim” #2 had to make to remove himself from the breeding pool.  One doesn’t just walk into Mordor, nor does one find himself sans-clothing in a Killer Whale tank after-hours in an amusement park.

That level of determination requires a very powerful desire, and among the candidate emotions {curiosity, reverence, empathy, lust} only perverse sexual desire is strong enough to find you dead in a tank in the dark in your birthday suit.  All the other options could be expressed in public, in the light of day, in socially acceptable ways, with no risk and the benefit of clothing.

I wish my analysis were wrong so I’d never have to write this post and my investigation into Victim #2 could have ended with hapless accident. But no, not only wasn’t this some innocent mishap, Victim #2′s family decided to sue Sea World for marketing Killer Wales as sexual objects.

09-21-1999
Killer Lawsuit Filed

ORLANDO , Fla. – The parents of a man found naked and dead on the back of a killer whale at SeaWorld Orlando are suing the marine park, alleging the dangerous orca was portrayed as a huggable stuffed toy, a lawyer for the family said Monday.

Patricia and Michael Dukes of Columbia, S.C., filed suit Sept. 10 in Orange County Circuit Court seeking several million dollars for pain and suffering at the loss of their only son, Daniel, 27, a drifter who drowned in July in a whale tank at the Florida theme park.

Attorney Patricia Sigman said SeaWorld is legally liable because it portrayed the killer whale as human loving.

SeaWorld general manager Vic Abbey said the park would vigorously fight the lawsuit.

Twenty-seven year old men don’t play with huggable stuffed toys alone in the dark without clothing.  Those toys are generally silicone and require lubrication.  If Daniel Dukes had only consulted the internet before he decided to rape an Orca in the blow hole as his final act, he would have found a ready supply of like-minded zoophiliacs willing to supply him with silicon Orca genitalia [pictured at left].  Not to miss the opportunity to make a buck off of a “tragedy,” those same wackjobs have put said sex toys on sale today to take advantage of the growing interest in Orcas that is most certainly going to follow in the wake of this non-tragedy.

Although the Dukes were represented by an attorney who now proclaims herself among the “elite” of Florida ambulance chasers, the lovely couple who gave the world Daniel finally realized that they were not, in fact, entitled to millions of dollars because Sea World failed to post signage saying “DO NOT RAPE THE ORCAS, Please. Thanks.”

Killer Whale Lawsuit Dropped
Reprinted from the Houston Chronicle

Tuesday, October 5, 1999
Orlando, Florida

The parents of a man found naked and dead on the back of a killer whale at Sea World Orlando have dropped a lawsuit alleging Sea World caused their son’s death by portraying the dangerous orca whale as safe and huggable.

“They voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit,” Sea World executive vice president and general manager Vic Abbey said. “This was a very tragic accident that occurred, but as we’ve said all along we felt the lawsuit had no merit.”

Patricia and Michael Dukes of Columbia, South Carolina, had filed suit on September 10 seeking several million dollars for pain and suffering at the loss of their only son, Daniel, 27, a drifter who was found drowned to death in July in the whale tank. Heavy intoxication apparently contributed to this untimely event.

What, you say? Such a handsome young fellow couldn’t have wanted to rape the male Orca. Surely he was just drunk and mistook the tank for a hot tub.  Well, anyone who’s been to college can tell you that 99% of sexual encounters start with alcohol and that “tub hopping” never involves breaking and entering into a guarded amusement park to get access to freezing tanks where giant animals defecate.  Sure, some of the faculty hot tubs are pretty nasty, but a little jock itch fungus is about the most lethal thing you’ll find at the end of your junk after an ill advised dip.

You see, this wasn’t the first time Daniel Dukes broke into a well secured property, removed his clothing and got into bed with an unreceptive millionaire alpha male who could kill him.

The killer whale that apparently killed a trainer today in front of a horrified SeaWorld audience was also connected to the death in 1999 of a drifter so obsessed with Ultima Online that he once wandered into Richard Garriott’s [author of the game] home.

Daniel Dukes, 27, the son of Columbia, S.C., real estate brokers, drifted into Austin, Texas in the late 90s, compiling an impressive arrest record.

The Austin America-Statesman reported at the time that the crimes included “stealing a Barbie doll, briefcase and women’s camisole from a Target store; clocking a fellow patron in the head at Joe’s Generic Blues Bar; and breaking into a home where he was discovered resting in a downstairs bedroom.”

But the crime that finally pushed him out of the city and towards his eventual death in Florida, was the strangest of all.

During an interview years ago, Garriott, creator of popular computer role-playing game Ultima, told me that it was Dukes who broke into his castle-like home in Austin in the late 90s. It’s a story he tells with the ease of someone one who’s told and retold the tale countless times.

Garriott says that the man, who he described as an obsessed Ultima fan, slipped into his fenced property, smashed out a glass door with a rock and headed to the stairs to his bedroom. Frightened, Garriott says he pulled out a gun and told the man to stop. When Dukes didn’t, he fired off a warning shot leaving a bullet hole in the wall.

Ignoring the shot, the man walked up to Garriott’s bedroom, stripped and got into bed. That’s where police found him when they responded to Garriott’s 911 call.

Their claim of SeaWorld’s implied invitation to rape an Orca wasn’t the most preposterous thing about the Dukes’ claim… the notion that they were suffering from Daniel’s loss was.  This young adult was strange, estranged, and had a record of troubling behavior that his family should have realized would lead to his death and possibly the death of others. Orcagate was just the last in a long line of embarrassments  that these parents unleashed on the world, and yet they truly felt that SeaWorld owed THEM money. Amazing.

In digging for the truth in this story, not only did I find that the most sensational and troubling aspect of this story–that Tilikum was likely sexually assaulted–had been hushed up, but that emotional and sexual objectification of animals like Tilikum is alive and well on the internet. Daniel Dukes might have missed out on the Orca dildo, but instructions on how to seduce and rape your Cetacean of choice have been proudly published on the internet for more than ten years by a “Liberated Christian” website called the Sexwork Cyber Resource Center whose goal is to “support sexwork as a legitimate profession.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Now, it’s probably not a huge shock that if you combine a random verb with a random noun, there’s probably someone out there with a sexual fetish combining the two. The internet term for this phenomenon is called “Rule 34” which states: “pornography or sexually related material exists for any conceivable subject.”  Apparently getting eaten alive by an Orca is one example of this fetish and there are plenty of artists out there willing to provide content. If you want to be horrified, google “Orca Vore.” For those like me who had never heard of “vore” before, it’s defined:

“Vorarephilia (shortened to vore) is a sexual fetish and paraphilia where arousal occurs from the idea of being eaten or watching someone or something eating someone or something else. The fantasy may involve the person being swallowed alive, and may or may not include digestion.”

And sadly, this is only a small part of the sexualization of animals, in specific Cetaceans, that permeates our popular culture.  It isn’t just confined to fringe underground groups with unresolved issues from their childhoods, the treatment of whales and dolphins as sexual objects is rather mainstream. And no, not just in the double entendre of “Free Willy.”

We have reports of suicidal dolphins who attempt to rape divers in England.

We have articles and documentaries which detail young male dolphin gangs kidnapping and raping hapless dolphin females.

We have numerous videos of Dolphins being trained to mock-rape humans for laughs:

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An episode of King of the Hill features Hank being sexually assaulted by a dolphin:

“Return to La Grunta”
February 23, 1999
Luanne convinces Hank to swim with a dolphin in a local country club pool, but his pride takes a plunge when the mammal tries to seduce him.

Yesterday as I used Google Fast Flip to view the most popular articles of the day, the top story was a repost of a three year old story asking if Orcas can be gay!

Even when Cetacean advocates are trying to document the institutionalized abuse of these animals from their capture at sea through to their dubious repatriations, there exists questionable sexual undertones to their choice of titles:

From “Lolita, Slave to Entertainment”

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If you were shocked at SeaWorld’s press conference advertisement today where their director said that absolutely nothing was going to change at their facility in response to this latest incident, I’ll give you one hint at the reason: Orca sexuality.  That’s right. Besides being a rather small part of the “Dine with Shamu” shows at Sea World–a bit part (splashing the audience with his tail) that could easily be filled by one of the smaller less aggressive females–Tilikum makes big bucks by being “milked” by his trainers. With less than 50 Orcas in captivity and a huge market for baby Shamus, Tilikum’s seed is the reason he’ll likely never be returned to the wild or put down.

We can dance around this issue all we want, claim that it’s animal husbandry and not sexual, that Daniel Dukes has nothing in common with the trainer in the picture who has been “training Tilikum for artificial insemination” since 1999, that it’s conservation not exploitation, or we can wake up and ask if what we are doing to these animals in the light of day is as questionable as what has been done to them under the cover of darkness.

P.S. Whoever spent $165.00 for 12-inch replica Orca wang most certainly did not get an authentic experience.

Mara’s breeder concluded that she was a Cryptic Merle Lilac Tricolor. This is a fair assessment given that she had one chocolate-ish spot, but was otherwise much lighter, much like two of the puppies in her current litter.  I suspect that you can also add Sable. Here are some early photos of Mara which show how her coat has progressed from blonde to lilac at birth, 2 weeks and 6 weeks old:

That 6 weeks photo is pretty standard for Lilac, and you’ll notice that Mara’s nose is not black, not chocolate, but a purple color.  I believe this suggests that the Chocolate to Lilac dilution gene is present.

Also notice how Mara’s tri brown markings are blended on her face instead of solid with more clear borders. This effect appears in both her father and her father’s mother, and I believe this suggests that her tri markings are actually Sable.

Mara’s sire is “Chip” and her dam is “Flynn.” Flynn is a smooth coat chocolate dog with white piebald markings on her back and ear. You’ll notice that the white completely obliterates both the chocolate and brown tri color around her mouth:

Given the extensive knock-0ut effect of Flynn’s white piebald markings, it’s hard to judge if her tri color brown has sable elements or not.

Mara’s sire, Chip, is a blue merle tricolor, although I contend that there’s evidence of sable blending in his cheeks and on his legs:

Chip’s sire appears to be an unremarkable black and white dog, but his mother, Roxie, has quite the palette of tan points, variegated red and chocolate and stray white spots. Although this picture isn’t the best, I think you can see the same blending in the tan markings in the cheeks:

Although I’m unsure if the cheek blending is a definitive indication of sable being present, Mara’s coat is very similar to the following unrelated dog that has been identified as a sable merle; if we replace the dominant Black with Brown and add the Dilution to Lilac, I’d say the patterning is strikingly similar:

The accompanying description of the coloring fits our situation well:

In some breeds, such as Shetland Sheepdogs and Rough Collies, a slightly different version of sable exists. This type consists of brownish hairs on the back and head (even though these dogs have black pigment), and is often called “shaded sable”. On this type of sable coat, merling can be quite visible (if there is a lot of dark brown shading) or very hard to see (if the shading is lighter and not so extensive). However, the merling is usually visible at birth, so breeders will generally know if their dogs are sable merles or just sables. A sable merle will have some faint, darker brown/tan patches on a lighter base, and the merling will usually be confined to the back and head. It is often most visible on the ears, where the fur is shorter.

As expected, Mara has the darkest hairs on her ears, head, and shoulder blades; the hairs along her trunk do show the sable effect with darker tips and lighter shafts, and her puppy photos show the darker brown/tan patches on a lighter base.

All in all, the original classification appears correct if we add in sable: Cryptic Sable Merle Lilac with tan points. Genetically this is Chocolate + Dilute + Sable + Merle.

Oh they grow up so fast, and the sight of his very first breath still plays vividly in stereo when I think of it.  There’s an amazing amount of plot in those first eight weeks, a story unto itself and the first chapters of what’s starting to be a great read.  It’s a different experience raising them from birth versus 8 weeks.

Each of my four dogs has a role, and a corner of my heart, and if I had to sum up Mercury’s part it’d be “Legacy.”  A legacy is a gift you leave to others, the continuation of your work after you’re gone.  But you have to build a legacy, and it has to start somewhere.  Dublin and Celeste are that start, my choices from the pool of others’ art.  Mercury is my art, the product of my breeding choices, and the start of my Border Collie legacy.

So it’s rather exciting to announce that Mercury is a father to 6 beautiful puppies.  The joys of doggy fatherhood consist of making your “contribution” and then letting the mother do all the work, but we’re pretty proud none-the-less.   Like human babies, there’s not a whole lot to talk about right now except which parent the pups resemble (apparently a sea otter mated with a mole-rat if looks are indicative of parentage at this age) and what color they are.

I haven’t had Mercury tested for color genetics, since it’s rather tangential to what I value in the dogs–I don’t breed for color–but it appears that Mercury carries his father’s tri-color allele (guaranteed given that it’s recessive and Dublin is homozygous) as well as the allele for the chocolate coat variant: a surprise.

Mara is rather a mystery as she’s a cryptic merle. Although there’s a separate dilution gene that turns black to blue and chocolate to lilac, the merle gene itself dilutes the coat as well, so black + merle = “blue” merle, even though we could very well call it black merle.

If black + merle = “blue merle,” what do we call blue + merle?  I don’t know the term and suggest that instead of making up yet another word for even-more-diluted-than-blue, we just call black + merle “black merle” and blue + merle “blue merle.”

The best guess on Mara is cryptic merle lilac tricolor, but if we ignore her merle is she a chocolate/red or is she lilac (chocolate+dilute)? Since she’s cryptic, we only have a few dark spots to judge, but they look lilac, not chocolate.  It’s also possible that there’s some sable element to her coat, giving even more complexity.  But since all the dilute puppies are also cryptic merle, it’s likely that Mercury doesn’t carry dilute, as we don’t have any just lilac or just blue puppies: their dilution comes from the merle gene.

The happy group consists of 4 Boys, 2 Girls: 1 blue tricolor cryptic merle, 2 chocolates, 1 chocolate tricolor, and 2 red tricolor cryptic merles.  The breeder calls the last two lilac cryptic merles, but I think the base color is chocolate, not lilac, and the extensive dilution of the merle makes their coats predominantly lighter-than-red.

The cryptic (not highly expressed) merle genes come from the mother, Mara, and are what dilute the black to slate in the blue merle tri, and the chocolate to “lilac” in the two lilac merle puppies. Since I don’t think Mercury carries Dilute, my guess is that whereas Mara is a Chocolate + Dilute + Merle, the two puppies are just Chocolate + Merle.  If they are lilac + merle, then Mercury also carries Dilute.