Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Wolves - Halloween

From "Lone Wolf" by Jodi Picoult, "A wolf is born with blue eyes and at six or seven weeks they turn Golden." I'm not sure if I've quoted that exactly as she wrote it - I apologize if I've misquoted her.

That got me to thinking about the eye colors in Icelandics. I have had pups whose eyes when they finally opened were blue-ish and they actually did change color to what I've called amber (like the fossilized tree sap sometimes with preserved insects in it) or sometimes a greenish color, and light or even dark brown. Does that mean their amber-yellow-golden eyes are closer to the color of wolves' eyes? (Rhetorical question probably.) I'm not even sure that all wolves have "golden" eyes.

Virtually all the northern breeds like Icelandic Sheepdogs occasionally produce dogs with one or sometimes two blue eyes that stay into adulthood. Sorry. I love the variety in our breed. The genes for eye color do not ever exist alone on a chromosome; rather there are hundreds of genes on every chromosome. Think about it. If one discriminates against a harmless gene on a chromosome by refusing that dog's ability to reproduce, one is also removing all the other genes on that chromosome, perhaps some good ones, from the gene pool. Could that contribute to a narrowing of the gene pool for a breed? If so, in my opinion, that is not a sound strategy. Discriminating against a harmful or deleterious gene is another matter entirely - just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Here are some wolf photos. Clicking on them will enlarge them.









Although they might look a bit spooky (it's Halloween), I kind of like them.

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