Bernese Mt. Dog,Golden Retriever Breeding

**Herb Baker** · 01-24-2006, 05:05 PM

Hi to all,

Question - Has anyone ever seen a Bernese Mt. Dog + Golden Retriever Puppy or Dog? If so, do you have a photo? HB

**dream_dog1234** · 01-24-2006, 08:35 PM

Believe it or not, here's one:

**dream_dog1234** · 01-24-2006, 08:40 PM

Here's some others....

Oh ya, and I'm justing curious, what are you needing these pictures for????

**dab_20** · 01-24-2006, 09:59 PM

Exactly. Are you breeding?

**SemaviLady** · 01-24-2006, 10:23 PM

Very cool pics. Thanks for sharing. Good for genetics students. I'm always looking at mixtures to help work out the genes that each parent donated. It is helpful in predicting outcome in litters of purebreds.

This mixture shows the dominance of the Extension gene over the recessive 'e'. So resulting dog has black whiskers and can express other black hair. Therefore the results are not 'blonde' or all white. E comes from the BMD side. Recessive 'e' from the GR. The BMD overrides the blonde e/e and the babies are all heterozygous E/e.

Shows the dominance of the solid pigmented coat over the flashier white spotting gene (results in less flashy white markings). That dominant solid coat comes from the GR. The BMD carries a milder form of spotting trait (Irish spotting/flashy). Solid is incompletely dominant to spotting trait so small amounts of flashiness are possible but not necessarily expressed.

On top of that, shows two parents from breeds of rough coat, will produce relatively roughish hair. Rough coat is the recessive form of hair length but it ranges in expression. Both GR and BMD are homozygous for rough coat so cannot produce a truly smooth or short coated pup.

And finally the coat color, tan point is allowed to express because the E gene is turned on. E allows the expression of black and the colors inherited in the A series. Black and tan coloring is relatively recessive, but other colors in the A series seem incompletely dominant to it, so surprises happen.

The genetics of behavior are more complicated. Mixed breeds will be increasingly DE-specialized from the bred in behaviors of their parents, this is for certain. In other words, working traits honed in each breed, when combined as a mix will dilute those specializations, making them more generic. Their other behaviors, temperament/hard,soft, sharp, etc., may be more unpredictable especially if certain working traits of the parents clash.

In the experience of our breed rescue, mixes (with pyr, GSD and other breeds) turn out to need rehoming more frequently than purebreds. This is partly due to the unpredictable outcome of behavior and partly due to the fire-sale mentality of those who breed mixes and the need to 'get rid' of puppies becomes pressing. The behavioral traits and brain neurotransmitters that are stablilized in purebreds to promote certain working behaviors, get unpredictably scrambled up with a little from each of the different parent breeds. People sometimes assume that the best of both worlds from each parent will be inherited, however the result can be quite random and unpredictable...