A merle French Bulldog is a particular coat pattern on a Frenchie. Other breeds have the merle coat pattern as well (such as Corgi, Border Collie, Chihuahua, plus a lot more). The merle gene creates a splotchy coat pattern and sometimes a blue (or partially blue) eye.
From there, you can become more specific on the type of merle that the dog is. For instance, you can have a blue merle, a red merle, or a black merle. Oh, and it gets better! When other colors come into the mix, you get colors such as the tweed merle (which is blue, black, and tan).
Additionally, some dogs can carry merle and not express it, and this is called a cryptic merle. We had a pup from our first litter that was a cryptic merle he looks like a fawn, but came from a merle female and carries the merle gene. This is why genetic testing is so important for breeders, because you can barely tell he is a merle just by looking.
We love our merles! We have had puppies produced in our breeding program that were blue, black, tweed, and our one cryptic merle. We’re hoping to have some red merles in the future, as well.
There is some controversy with the merle coat pattern, however. I’ll go over two of the chief criticisms of merle French Bulldogs.
The first is that the merle gene didn’t come from bulldogs, but was bred into Bulldogs from another breed. Likely, several breeders introduced the merle coat pattern by breeding a Frenchie and Chihuahua or other smaller merle breeds. So, merles are not purebred. Somewhere up the line, they were mixed with another breed that had merle. That being said, AKC will still recognize merles as registered French Bulldogs; they just don’t recognize the color.
The second criticism is that there are health risks with the merle gene. In addition to all of the normal health risks of Frenchies, the biggest cause for concern is if a merle gets bred to another merle. For unknown reasons, when a merle is bred to another merle there are all kinds of health defects, including deafness and blindness. It is crucial for breeders to ensure that merles don’t breed together.
This is why when people ask for breeding rights for our puppies we start asking lots of questions! We want to make sure our puppies are being taken care of carefully.
To recap:
- Merle is a coat pattern that can mix several other colors, such as black, blue, tan or red
- We have them and love them
- It can be a controversial topic due to the merle gene having been crossbred into Frenchies and the possibility for health defects if two merles are bred together