Wow, she’s gorgeous! Is she an albino? What kind of dog is she? I didn’t know shelties came in white! Where did you get her? How can I get one? I want one! These are questions and comments I hear every day when I am out and about with my double merle shelties. People are fascinated by them.
Yes, my dogs are gorgeous, but they are also very impaired due to people’s poor decisions. My dogs are mostly white and are stunning to look at. They are always kept well groomed and their coats are fluffy and clean. I’m glad to have people interested in them because it gives me a chance to educate them that shelties are definitely NOT supposed to be all white!
People are always drawn to the unusual. My job is to help them go away with the knowledge that double merles are not a new fad that is up and coming, like the multitude of “doodle” mixes out there now. Nor are they rare and extra valuable. They are victims of a very sad epidemic - one in which people are creating dogs with severe impairments for their own gain. Double merles do not just happen by falling out of the sky. They only happen when two dogs carrying the merle gene are bred together. Thus, double merles are totally preventable.
Once people realize that my dogs are blind and deaf, they are shocked and saddened that someone could be so irresponsible to cause this. Sometimes they make cruel comments that my dogs would be better off dead. While I know my dogs are happy and healthy, some people assume that I am the cruel one to have kept them alive in the first place. Some try to convince me to put my dogs out of their misery. What misery?
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