This page is my opinion, my place to growl and whine. Take it or leave it, like it or lump it, dear readers. Stay and read, or click away to another site!

Once upon a time in 1883, was born a woman named Margaret Morse. In the early 20th century, she married and became Margaret Morse Nice, mother of five. Mrs. Nice was a midwestern housewife. She didn't have a PhD. But Mrs. Nice was bright, and Mrs. Nice was determined. She corrected some scientific misconceptions that had been held by biologists for time out of mind. She published over 250 scientific papers. The great ornithologist Dr. Ernst Mayr (whom I met once long ago), said that Mrs. Nice almost singlehandedly revolutionized the study of birds in America. How could Margaret Nice accomplish this all by herself in an era when there were few professional women, and no one would listen to an amateur woman? Mrs. Nice did not assume. She observed. It was that simple. In doing so, Margaret Morse Nice became a scientist.

One of the misconceptions that Mrs. Nice corrected was that of the incubation period of the Golden Eagle. All the scientific papers on bird-egg incubation stated that it took a certain exact number days for a Golden Eagle egg to hatch (I cannot now remember how long, but think the number was 22 days). Mrs. Nice began to look through the scientific literature to see which scientist had done the original observations of Golden Eagle egg incubation time. She dug through mountains of published papers. Dr. X quoted Dr. Y's paper. Dr. W's paper quoted Dr. X's paper, Dr. U's paper quoted Dr. W's paper, and Dr. Z's paper quoted Dr. A's paper, but nowhere could she find a paper in which someone had written, "I observed Golden Eagles and checked the nests each day to determine how long it took the eggs to hatch." She waded through thousands of pages, leafing back through hundreds of years of scientific history, seeking the primary source.

At last, Mrs. Nice came to this source. The ultimate source of wisdom on Golden Eagle egg incubation time was none other than Aristotle! And, wait! Something was wrong here. Aristotle's paper stated that since Golden Eagles were about the same size as domestic geese, their incubation periods should be the same. So there it was, uncovered at last. The information fixed for two millennia in the scientific literature as fact, was only a guess. The incubation period of the Golden Eagle, in other words Aristotle's surmise, had been quoted in a procession of documents down the years by great numbers of scientists as being exactly a certain number of days -- but the actual observations had never been done! And, in fact, the scientists were all, irrevocably, wrong.

Now, I am no Margaret Morse Nice, though she has been one of my heroes since I was small. And what I am about to say here is nothing earth-shattering, but I hope the example above has captured your attention, because here it comes:

All double merle Sheltie puppies that are born with white around their eyes and ears are going to be blind and deaf, right? Wrong. Well, close to a hundred percent of double merle Shelties with white around eyes and ears are blind and deaf, right? Wrong. Well, the overwhelming majority of double merle Shelties with white around their eyes and ears are blind and deaf, right? Wrong.

My records of double merle Shelties include nearly 80 individuals, and span more than thirty years. I have noted very carefully the color patterns of the heads of these Shelties. This is what I have observed:

The colored patches on the heads of double merles are irrelevant to their blindness and deafness. Some doubles with white all around their eyes (or even having totally white heads), will not be blind. Some will. Some double merles with white all around their ears will not be deaf. Some will. From my observations, blindness and deafness seem to have little or nothing to do with the locations of the colored patches on the head. I have also found that double merles are much more likely to be deaf than blind.

If you do a merle-to-merle breeding once in a very great while, as I do, you are no doubt aware of the risks involving double merles. However, it is very sad for me to hear these words, "I was so hoping for a good double merle from this litter, and I got one that looked lovely. However, he had white all around his eyes and had white ears, so I had him put down at birth, because he would have been deaf and blind." My observations have told me that such a puppy has no greater chance of being deaf and blind than a double merle puppy with lots of color around the ears and eyes.

Shetland Sheepdogs have had two great sires that were double merles with white around the eyes, Shadow Hill Double Trouble, ROM, and Shamont Ghost of a Chance, ROM. Both were sighted, and "Boo" was certified normal-eyed. If the breeders of these great Shelties had put them down at birth because they had white around their eyes and therefore "had to be blind," our breed would have lost these beautiful -- and individually cherished -- ROM sires.

I have seen many double merle Shelties with all-white heads that had normal vision and hearing. I have seen many with colored patches including both eyes (even BLACK patches), that were blind. I've seen many with colored patches that included both ears, that were deaf. The double merle with the most head color I have ever seen, including black eye rims, brown in the eyes, and colored patches around both eyes, was blind. I have also seen the inverse of all these, blind and/or deaf double merles that did have white surrounding the eyes and/or ears.

How many double merle puppies with white heads have never had a chance to grow up and add their information to the small store of facts about double merles, because their owners assumed they would be blind or deaf and had them put down at birth?

The point is this: Please do not assume that a double merle puppy with white around its eyes will be blind. He may -- but equally likely, he may not. It's time to clear away some of these cobwebs and act upon what we see.