NOTE THE INCLUSION OF THIS ARTICLE AT INDIVIDUAL BREEDER WEBSITES IS UNAUTHORIZED & THE DISCUSSION OF COLOR & MARKINGS BELOW NO WAY SUGGESTS A SUPPORT OF INDIVIDUAL BREEDER PRACTICES OUTSIDE OF BREED TRADITION.. ALL THOSE WISHING TO PURCHASE A GREAT DANE IN THE USA SHOULD BEGIN BY VISITING THE GREAT DANE CLUB OF AMERICA'S WEBSITE.

THE PIEBALD DANE: Pinto, Parti-colored, Check: the Colour-Headed or White-factored Dane. (Der Plattenhund).

TO See the latest on coat color research in dogs, to include new info on piebaldism, CLICK HERE.

NOTE THAT THE EXISTENCE OF PIEBALD IS NO LONGER IN QUESTION AND A COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE GENETIC TEST IS OFFERED FOR PIEBALD. SEE THE ARTICLE LINKED ABOVE FOR DETAILS OF THE S LOCUS AS DETERMINED AT THE GENETIC LEVEL.

There is quite a bit of confusion about the piebald* dane. There are problems that result from breed-specific & even idiosyncratic terminology, and there are problems of identificaion as well. Of first import is to be clear that the piebald dane is a disqualifying mismark that should be identified as such and typically then sold on limited registration as a non-breeding, pet-only Dane. All of the various iterations of piebald in the Great Dane, are genetically undermarked Mantledanes; they are not acceptable Mantledanes nor are they some kind of Harlequin. Mantledanes must have a complete blanket, not body spots. Harlequins must have the distinctive, irregular torn patches which distinguish them from parti-colored dogs, also called pintos, piebalds, etc. Black and white parti-colored or piebalds (pintos) Danes *are* sometimes bred (knowingly or unknowingly), and even shown as Harlequins. What's wrong with that, you say? Alot.

Firstly, the dog has simply been misidentified if called a harlequin, & so has been misregistered. If that alone doesn't matter to you, then this next point certainly should: piebalds are mismarked Mantles who do not carry & cannot produce Harlequins or Mantles on their own. This mis-identification therefore has great genetic consequences to the already confined & confused harl family gene pool. Piebald danes increase the percentage of mismarks & piebald carriers in every breeding in which they are used, and this decreases the number of correctly marked Danes in the gene pool, particularly down through the generations, and also results in the spread of this undesirable gene. Piebalds can also can increase the percentage of deaf puppies in Harlequin litters. Clearly any responsible breeder would be doing all they could to minimize the incidence of both in their litters & their bloodline. (As Ann Greavu has clearly documented, the problem of white danes is further reaching than simply the merle gene: we have both piebald deafness & merle deafness in our breed. See Cattanach/Strain. which docments all forms of piebald can and do produce both partial & complete deafness; see also "White" Danes). We have dogs registered as "harls," "whites," "white & black," & even "mantle" who are genetic piebalds. All this adds to the confusion & potentially damages the gene pool. And thanks to the recessive nature of the piebald spotting allele, plus the fact these piebald Danes go unrecognised & continue to be bred by folks unaware of the far-reaching consequences, it looks like the piebald is here to stay, and may well be increasing in frequency.

Why is that so & exactly why is that a problem? Piebald danes are likely increasing because: 1) American harldane breeders & owners tend to favor a very lightly marked harlequin, thus unintentionally selecting for the underlying genetics of piebald, 2) far too many breeders of Harlequins use multiple mismarks on a routine basic in their breeding programs, thus muddying the waters perpetually, so that, 3) we are currently unable to ascertain exactly what genotypes for the phenotype Mantle are present in our breed, which is our only point of control, given that, 4) it is practically impossible to discerne how much white on a harl came from recessive spotting (e.g. piebald) genes & how much from merle-harl dominant white genes.

It's a problem because having so many piebalds in the gene pool is robbing us all of show marks at the very least. Piebald is a simple Mendelian recessive. Breed two piebald carriers (white factored dogs) and one-in-four resulting puppies statisticaly will be some form of piebald (color-headed white), be it "pied," "harl head/lite-marked harl" or merle-head/merlikin. Often heavy mismarks also are born (mismarked blacks, blanket harls) to these litters too. So just look at the show marks in the same litter & know had both of the parents not been piebald carriers, you would have seen more like the show marks: so you lost statistically four pups that could have been show marked, dogs made to the standard, the colors intended to be bred. And breeding piebalds to to heavily marked dogs to get show marks is "robbing Peter to pay Paul": the show marks made from this will just make more piebalds. So the practice of breeding mismarked blacks to piebalds to get Mantles, for example, means that the show marked offspring will produce the same problems of color found in the original parents. You are back where you started, no progress made. Not understanding this means often breeders feel color is uncontrollable where it is not. THE POINT HERE is to simply recognize this, restrict their use, and ideally move on from using piebalds to the correctly marked offspring that are only piebald carriers, and from there to avoid breeding carriers to each other whenever possible, so as to move away from a gene that detracts from fully achieving the breed standard & help bring the breed's gene pool back to the main genes that produce the most correct markings in the Harlequin family over time.

Here's a simple example of why this is a problem, using a piebald bitch. She carries two doses of what we'll call white-factoring (that makes her a piebald (mmss)). She is bred to a correctly marked Harlequin male. She produces from him 2 correctly marked harls, 2 correctly marked mantles, 2 boston-marked merles, a piebald like herself, and a "merlikin." Not a bad litter you say? Four show-marked pups to start with, for a harl litter, is really good. Here's the problem: *ALL* four of those pups are now white-factored. They may be show-marked, but they are carriers of white-factoring, and this has gone unrecorded. So they are sold and bred. Let's say they are all bred to other correctly marked, white-factored danes like themselves. For a guided tour of how piebalds & recessive white-factored dogs breed, see this white factored (collie) site.

Now what happens? You lose show prospects each time you breed them & keep spreading white-factoring through the gene pool. White-factored to white-factored means 25% of each of their litters will lack body color, & 50% more will be "carriers" like themselves. And so on...and so on...and the genes for white-factoring are spread. Dogs are sold and bred, & people buy and then breed these white-factored pups unknowingly. Eventually one of these white factored danes meets up with another piebald like the original bitch, or one of those nearly white harlequins who carries two doses of white-factoring, & then the resulting litter is mostly lite & undermarked dogs, including some deaf pups, and, since they are all mostly white, you cannot even sort out from looks what's what. Even worse, two "harls" meet, one actually a piebald & the other carrying twice for white-factoring (both could be "beautifully"--if litely--marked!), and practically the whole litter is white & you have no real show marks at all to show for it, plus a bunch of potentially deaf & blind pups.

Okay, you say, fine--I'll breed my piebald bitch to a Mantle--I _know_no deaf whites can come from that & I'll at least get mantles. Wrong. You _can_ get piebald & deaf pups if the Mantle you choose is white-factored (does he have splashy color, a break in the blanket?), and even if you do get well-marked Mantles they will *ALL* be white factored, so will be carriers of this same problem again. There is just no way to get around it: breeding mismarks makes more mismarks. Sure, *you* can "get away with it" for a generation or two, but someone, somewhere, down the line will have the pay the price. The _breed_ pays the price. So, please! mark all pedigrees acturately: don't mis-register whites (MM) as harls (Mm), or piebalds (mm) as harls (Mm), & don't use piebalds (mmss) & piebald "lite-marked" (Mmss) harls in your breeding program unknowingly.+ Confine the use of mismarks in a breeding program to circumstances of extreme duress & make them the exception, not the rule. Truly "Color Ethical" breeders don't play fast & loose with pedigrees, or sell off mismarks routinely as breeding stock. There are far worse "sins" in harldane land than having a "fawn in the woodpile" & not having a clue _what_ you have (& are spreading to others) is certainly one of them.

=================================

NOTE: There _was_some controversy over the existence of piebalds in the Great Dane breed. Although some experts such as Friedmar Krautwurst explicitly refer to the piebald as a reality of the genetic Dane inheritance, others such as Neil O'Sullivan felt these dogs are mutated harl/merle animals, with pigment patches isolated in areas of evolutionary importance. Breeders may also have been divided on this issue? However the genetic evidence now seems clear that piebalism in some form does exist. And whereas Dr. Krautwurst would call these dogs white-factored (<mm>) mismarks & Dr. O'Sullivan would call these dogs merle-factored (<MM> or even <Mm>) mismarks, they would both call them disqualifying mismarks. And not knowing the genetics of an animal who is also a mismark seems to be yet another reason to NOT breed it? That the FCI recently allowed this predominately white dog to be shown in the Open Black class is as controversial as it is illogical. Many FCI countries have been laboring hard to reverse what they felt was a poor decision for the breed, one felt by many to be political, not rational, in nature. Recall in the FCI dogs that are not within the standard cannot even be registered, nevermind bred. So dogs have to be "showable" to be considered breed dogs under FCI, unlike the AKC/CKC situation here. And the way a standard is changed under FCI isn't through the democratic process of a member vote as it has to be in the AKC, nor is how often it can be changed restricted. Less than a handful of people in the breed's country of origin can change the standard at any point and even over the objections of the majority of countries and/or majority of breeders.

*Piebald is not only a perfectly reasonable general appellation for this phenomenon in Danes, as the dogs in question most definately carry an iteration (s^p and/& se, called s^w) of the piebald allele, but the color pattern in German is referred to as "PLATTENHUND," meaning "plate(or disc)-like" markings, to distinguish them from Manteltigeren (Mantledanes) & Tigerdoggen (Harlequins). This recessive white pattern, disqualified under the standard, would most likely be best translated as "piebald," given that "Tiger" in German refers to the Paint or "pinto" horse, & therefore "Tigerdogge" is loosely translated as Pinto-(German)-Mastiff. (Krautwurst has argued that "Harlequin" & "Tiger" are both bad appelations for what he called the "geflect" (patched, spotted or dappled) Great Dane.) It seems only reasonable to carry on this breed tradition & precisely seperate out Harlequins from piebalds, in that the standard itself does, & they _are_ genetically distinct. It is unfortunate that so much confusing inter-breed (& even intra-breed) terminology abounds for parti-colored, pinto, piebald, color-headed, white-bodied & white-factored animals, so it is necessary to specifically define one's terms. Here piebald is taken to mean the non-harlequin Black & White Dane that is more white than allowed under the Mantledane description--a spotted dane (the harlequin is technically patched, not spotted)--who is at least 50% white & is <mmss> in genotype (the recessive s being s^ps^p, s^es^e, or a heterozygote s^ps^e, perhaps even s^is^e/s^is^p, although these latter are more likely to fit the color standard for the Mantledane if they do exist in the breed).

+For those trying to navigate harldane pedigree space, best to get photos (ah-the day AKC requires photos with registrations!!!) of all the dogs you can. Beware dogs listed as "white with black markings," especially if these animals were bred to harls. Any dog who is so registered, if not a defective-white (<MM>), is most likely either a piebald (<mmss>), or a piebald harl (<Mmss>), & you'll find white-bodied dogs pop up for generations to come in such pedigrees, which means their well-marked siblings are likely white-factored, so will also produce piebald deaf, other defective whites, plus undermarked harls & piebald danes. Also any Harlequins, particularly non-Champion harls for whom one does not have accurate photos may be suspect, especially if there are numerous litely marked/mostly white dogs in the pedigree.

This message written and prepared by JP Yousha for the purposes of education and can be reprinted to that end.
All copyrights © remain with the author.
CHROMADANE 2000. Illustration added 2007.
*multi-titled/certified harlequin family danes*
www.chromadane.com