#Merle

[jerreeeeeee]

you know how little kids like to interview people?

[odddogs]

i hardly know what to say, when confronted w/ eternity i reckon few do have the words they need in that moment. so i won't feel guilty not being up to the task

[therosecrest]

[gayestcowboy]

they deserve to be happy forever

[anonbeadraws]

You could say they're robbin' that lich blind, but does it count when he has no eyeballs... ☠️ (Based on this great post from @jumpboy-rembrandt) ✨Coms/Tips✨

[carefuldogclipping]

Dad wrote an email back thanking me for a perfect groom ;-;

[moonyflesh]

i’m tired of pretending i didn’t absolutely love him.

[ripinpipsmousery]

The mouse of the week is DUKE LINT for BEING FRIENDLY DURING CLEANING TIME and LOOKS LIKE DRYER GARBAGE

Congrats DUKE LINT!

[elektroyu]

And the Border Collie is done! ✨ Format is 11x14"

I had such a blast with this! A liiittle bit experimental perhaps, but if you never try anything different you can't grow and learn, right?

Reference pics:

Border Collie pup by Vixor/ pixabay

and one of my own pics for the background

js-tierportraits.de

[latelyloxiv]

long haired butches and middle aged femmes i love being a lesbian

[jerreeeeeee]

man clint is such a good player. love how he plays merle. he always knows exactly what to say that’s just the right level of meaningful and funny and doesn’t take his characters too seriously but also takes his characters SO seriously. but its all so subtle and effortless that it ends up looking like nothing and people miss it

[that-stone-butch]

yesterday, our dog Tink had to be put down after a lengthy battle with liver disease. she was able to pass on in the comfort of our home, surrounded by her favorite blankets and stuffed animals. she had a good and full life; her age only caught up to her during her final year. she brought joy and gentleness to all who knew her.

i'm posting this because a lot of my followers enjoyed stories about her, seeing her photos, and her goofball charisma. i figured folks might be comforted to know that she's at peace now.

[gayestcowboy]

my honor mode dark urge!

[anonbeadraws]

some favourite bits from the upcoming taz comic I'm doing, and of course, my ultimate fav:

teeny magnus 🪓💜 ✨💜Tip jar💜✨

[the-slender-doll]

Spycrabs of my spies 🦀

[amber-tortoiseshell]

i know youre primarily a cat genetics blog, but what do you MEAN theres multiple merle alleles?? i thought it was just one mutation

Merle genetics is the coolest thing: there are basically unlimited amount of alleles. (Well. Or at least there are about a hundred.) You see, this isn't a simple point mutation like most variants we deal with on this blog - what we have here is called a SINE or "Short Interspersed Nuclear Element". This is a piece of DNA that inserts itself into the gene.

Without going into specifics, this SINE region doesn't have a predetermined length, and the longer the insertion is, the more pronounced the merle phenotype becomes.

Under 200 bp we have the non-merle, wild type m allele with no insertion. Over that, well, different people have classified it differently, but basically there's a continuous scale of merle M* alleles. Nowadays the most reliable merle tests don't just give you an allele name like M or Mc, but an allele length like 264 or 222, too.

Winnie's merle allele has the length of 273. Very merle!

The alleles are additive: a shorter one in itself can't cause a standard merle pattern (although sometimes they have a kind of dilution effect), together with another they might be able. The "dangers" of merle and especially double merle also rises with the insertion length: combining two short alleles is safe, while longer alleles together are to be avoided by all responsible breeders.

The unstableness of the insertion means that mosaicism in this gene (when the dog has slightly different merle alleles in different body parts) isn't rare either.

Bibliography:

Advanced Merle Genetics

Educational Charts and Diagrams

Defining the Scale of Merle

The History of Merle

Length variations within the Merle retrotransposon of canine PMEL: correlating genotype with phenotype

Being Merle: The Molecular Genetic Background of the Canine Merle Mutation

Merle phenotypes in dogs – SILV SINE insertions from Mc to Mh