URGENT: Lethal White, NC

[critters]

http://handicappedpet.net/help/viewtopic.php?t=10846

[Catty1]

Aww...she is a sweetie - poor girl! I hope she gets a forever or long-term foster home SOON!

[mugsy]

I forwarded her to S.A.F.E. Sanctuary in Faribault, MN. They like the lethal whites. I hope they can help! Patty wants to see her picture.

[critters]

OK, I passed your request along. Thanks!

[mugsy]

I just talked to Patty, they are full, but she has passed the little one on...has Aussie rescue been contacted?

[moosmom]

Does Lethal White mean white with odd eyes??? Poor baby. I hope someone comes to his rescue. He sure doesn't deserve to die.

[Ginger's Mom]

Lethal Whites are caused by breeding two merle Australian shepherds together (I think). It produces off-spring that have very little pigmentation and are almost always deaf and sometimes blind. It is a very sad and preventable occurrence. I hope she does well. It sounds like there are many good people pulling for her.

[moosmom]

Ginger's Mom,

Thanks for the explanation. That's disgusting and byb should be ashamed of themselves.

[GabrielDeafBlindPupFamily]

Any dog with the merling gene is at risk. When you breed merle to merle, you typically get 25% LW. LW is politically incorrect. We use it in LW rescue to draw attention to the plight of these dogs who are often deliberately created. 50% of the litter will be magnificent, big buck, and most importantly, highly salable merles. We have tried to get the AKC to disqualify ALL offspring of M x M bred births. They shrug and direct us to the breed club. We have contacted them as well, and while they advise against the M x M, they have only just recently deleted the requirement to CULL all LWs. In many breeders, this doesn't include taking baby to the vet for PTS, it means stomping, burying alive, snapping a baby neck, whatever it takes. The 'lucky' ones find themselves in rescue or in a municipal shelter totally inequipped to deal with the blindness or deafness. The deafness is caused by a lack of pigment in the hairs of the inner ear, genetically. Not all LWs are deaf, not all are blind. But the vast majority suffer one or both.

Humphrey is in a high kill shelter right now. I had worked with his owner to get her to attend our adoptoin events, which she refused and I could not get on property to assess him. She was just busted for puppy mill cruelty charges. So Humphrey has to go. He is in county shelter and they need to make room for Shelley's 31 dogs. 7 have found foster. The rest have not.

Please visit our new interactive rescue site at:

www.s8.createphpbb.com/lethalwhiteauss/

or our 'old' board, a yahoo group. For an explanation of the genetics, Allicks Blind Pup told cuz Christy what a LW is:
What We Are
An Aussie is born either as a type 'm' or as a type 'M'. I Type 'm' is called 'solid'. Type 'M' is called 'merle'. Both 'the small m' and 'the BIG M' are things we call 'genes'.
Well, you know how some of you humans have black hair and some have brown hair, while others are 'blondes' or 'red-heads'? Well there's something inside you that decides what color of hair or eyes or skin you are born with. Those 'things' are called 'genes', and they're passed on to you from your mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, and even as far back as your great, great, great grandparents!
In the World of the Lethal White, these 'genes' are really important to understand before Moms and Dads become....'Moms' and 'Dads'. And here's the reason: every Aussie has a mixture or combination of the 'm-gene' and the 'M-gene' inside us somewhere. We might have two 'little m's (mm) or we might have two 'big M's (MM) or we could even have one of each (Mm). What gene combination we have gives us our color, and can give us other 'things' too. Some of these 'things' are good...some aren't so good.
Aussies born with the 'mm-genes' are called 'solid dogs' - even though they're not 'solid' in color. They might be handsomely black with a little white and a little brown on them. The Aussies with the 'Mn-genes' are called 'mixed' or 'merle', and they look like someone mixed up buckets of paint and then finger-painted them! They're sort of strange looking when you first look at them, but they're really a beautiful mixture of color and tint! Now the Aussies with the 'MM-gene' are mostly white, and are called 'whites'.
And that's what Gabriel and I are: 'whites'.
Understand that when two Aussies plan to have puppies, this 'gene thing' is REALLY important! When two dogs with the 'merle-gene' breed,(remember...that's the 'mixed' genes), something happens that can make some of their puppies born as 'whites'. Usually if they have FOUR puppies - ONE of them will be a 'white' like us because ONE of them will have the 'MM'gene'. It's a one-fourth rule!
NO ONE WANTS to be a 'white' in the litter.
Why not?
Well, 'whites' aren't only mostly white, but we're also almost always blind. Gabriel and I were both born with something called 'microopthalmia'! That's one big word that means that our eyeballs weren't completely developed. Some 'whites' are born with 'anopthalmia', which means they have no eyeball at all! Now every pup born with 'microopthalmia' isn't born completely blind. Some, like Gabriel, are born with limited sight. They can see a little bit...but probably not good enough to read this!
As Gabriel grew, so did his head, but his eyes didn't grow. Some things called 'persistent papillary membranes' (PPMs) took over and he finally did go completely blind. The PPMs are responsible for making his eyes pink and pearly.
Another thing 'whites' can end up with is deafness! Even though I can hear perfectly fine, Gabriel is born deaf. Because Gabriel is blind and deaf, Karen has had to learn lots about how to help him by teaching humans how to treat him. For one thing, you don't want to just walk up and touch or pet a dog who can't see or hear you coming. That startles us just like it would if we would sneak up behind you and suddenly bark really, really loud!
Why are some of us born deaf?
One thing to understand is that having an EAR actually means we have THREE EARS: the External Ear (which is on the outside), the Middle Ear (which is on the inside, but not that far inside), and the Internal Ear (which is deep inside). Each of these EARS has an important job to do.
The Outer Ear and the Middle Ear share two jobs: they are both 'the Collectors' and 'the Conveyors'. The Outer Ear looks and acts like a funnel - collecting and funneling the vibrations to the Middle Ear.
The Middle Ear has quite the operation going. It takes vibrations from the Outer Ear, and conveys, or sends, them floating down a river of a special fluid that is found in the Inner Ear.
The Inner Ear is where the final steps are taken to make SOUND out of VIBRATIONS. It's like there are little tiny loudspeakers hidden in there! Sensory Hair Cells are THE critters who make all the difference! They move back and forth and from side to side and have a sort of magnetic quality about them, feeding the sensory nerves with 'messages' that they can then send to the brain. BUT the hair cells must have the pigment cell in order for the magnetic trick to work. If the nerves don’t get fed, they shrink up and die. Without the nerves, the message of SOUND will never reach the brain.
No pigment cell = no message= no hearing.
Yes, I'm lucky to hear, but Gabriel isn't so lucky. He's never heard a single noise. Not one. Some pups are born with hearing and then lose the hearing later on, when the 'sound nerves' die. Puppy Doctors say that once a 'white' gets six months old, few changes will come along. So if we hear when we're six-months old, chances are good that we won't lose our hearing.
Some of you are probably feeling sorry for us since we aren't 'normal'. Don't feel bad for us. We can still have a really happy life! Imagine for a minute that you fell down and broke your arm. Just because you couldn't catch with both paws...sorry...HANDS, doesn't mean you can't have fun does it? NO. You can still walk and run and hide behind trees and talk and eat and laugh. You just have an arm that you can't use for a while. Some humans don't have arms at all and they're still happy people. They might be 'different' than most, but they're still PEOPLE, right?
Well, in the world WE live in, some people think that puppies who are 'whites' can never be happy being blind, so they get rid of us. The best of them make sure we have good homes with humans who are patient and caring enough to help us when we need it. But there are others out there who aren't as nice. Some people actually kill us just because we're 'different'. They think we're useless and worthless. Every year probably hundreds and thousands of puppies die just because they were 'whites'.
Well, there are folks who are in the Puppy Business and they breed dogs just so they can sell the pups. There's nothing wrong with that. How else would there be so many wonderful dogs if not for breeders? The problem comes when a breeder KNOWS that there's going to be ONE in FOUR pups born white and they don't care. They can't sell the white ones so instead of finding the 'whites' homes - they just kill them.
That's why we're called 'Lethal'...because 'lethal' means...."you're probably not going to live long".

We want you to know just how smart and lovable we 'Lethal Whites' really are! We make wonderful pets! We're as loyal as any other respectable Dog. We're able to learn tricks and commands. We're even able to run like crazy all through our houses without running into the first piece of furniture...unless our humans trick us by MOVING things around.
How do we do it? We 'map' out the area, and then we remember the 'mapping'. Sounds tougher than it is. For us, it's really pretty easy, but I know humans aren't as good at this, so don't try running around blindfolded. You're sure to fall over something and break a leg!
Although we love people - even the little ones - we can be quite a handful to raise. Remember - we can't see. Some (like Gabriel) can't hear. The people we choose to own HAVE to be patient! They HAVE to be ready for some messes now and then. They HAVE to be willing to spend extra time pampering us. They HAVE to be able to afford the Doctor Bills because we sometimes have trouble and have to see the Dog Doctor. And my favorite qualification...they HAVE to provide lots and lots of hugs and kisses!
We'll play with you. We'll let you hug and kiss us. And if you stay all night - we might even curl up beside you in bed! You'll smile more. Everyone says so. Sometimes you'll even LAUGH. Especially when you watch us try to sniff out that pesky CAT that shares our oxygen! You'll see that we're no different that any other dog really. We're just as smart...just as beautiful...just as loving.
It's been said that we enrich our human's lives. It's been said that they actually 'sprout wings and fly'. Not sure just how they do that, but it's got to be a strange sight to behold! What I know is that we're able to bring into their lives what life sometimes cheats them from.
We can make them smile when they're down.
We can make them laugh through tears.
THAT is the greatest feeling!
And THAT is the MAGICAL WORLD OF THE 'LETHAL WHITE'!
LEARN MORE ABOUT "WHITES" & "PATTERN WHITES" by clicking on this URL: http://www.ashgi.org/color/white_aussies.htm and see for yourself some photos of 'whites'.....we're all beautiful...you'll love it!



Humphrey needs rescue now. Possum precludes any others as she has full-blown CCD, maybe seizure related aggression, deaf and blind. I committed to her a year ago, and I will not stop now. We have seen an over 50% decrease in her CCD and are pleading with doc on the 8th to get her on an Rx. They were and have been reluctant, believing her issues to be LW related. That is simply not the case, as I take the most well-adjusted and perfect dog on the planet, disabilty or no, with me, to show them a magnificent spokespup of the homozygous genetic defect.

I heard that the LW in NC may have rescue as well. Let's all pray that highly adoptable Humphrey finds rescue in the next day or two.

[Grace]

I had never heard of this condition, prior to this post. Now I've read about it twice in one day.

An article from the Best Friends site - Lethal White

[GabrielDeafBlindPupFamily]

That little baby in the photo is none other than my GabrielDeafBlindPup, left in the dirt in Wyoming to meet his fate with a shotgun. The kindness of blinddogs dot com and Charmaine F. who donated her frequent flyer miles, Sandy Dudley who fostered him in Colorado for a week and flew him to rescue right here to my house.... That picture broke my heart when I saw it August of 2004. It still breaks my heawrt. You can see Gabriel in his full glory now at

http://www.magicalworldoflethalwhite...com/photo.html

He is the spokespup for overcoming disability. He is my heart beat.
He saved my life.