Article:
Gosh! I don't think my nose completely filled in until I was 4 months old! I took longer than anyone else in my litter. My human mom tells me that unless both of your parents are merle there is nothing to worry about. Out of all the Aussies she as ever seen has only ever seen one Aussie, in her 20+ years of being owned by us, out of a solid x merle breeding, whose nose never filled in completely. Mom says that in her experience, as a rule, the more white trim we have, the longer it takes the nose to fill in... But as we all know rules can be broken... I do it all the time, much to her dismay (TeHe).




Noses not completely filling in occur frequently in homozygous merle puppies (those getting the merle genes from both parents). My foster sister, Joy, has a nose with pink spots & she is a homozygous merle and has FAR too much white trim. She is also totally deaf, as she has no pigmentation on her inner ear hairs. This is also often a result of having received a merle gene from each parent. For a primer on color and genetics, please go to http://www.jabed.com/color.htm .




If your puppy's nose never does fill in completely, it really is not much to be concerned about even if you plan on showing. (I mention this, because few people that are not interested in showing wouldn't think to ask the question in the first place... )


What your puppy has is a "butterfly nose". A butterfly nose is a pigmented nose with white spots. This is only a fault in the show ring for ASCA and for AKC it is a fault if the more than 25% of the nose is unpigmented after 1 year of age.. Yeah... Like the judge has a caliper and calculator in his hand? LOL. A Dudley nose (one that is totally pink) is the disqualifying fault.




The ONLY thing to be concerned about if the nose does not fill in completely, is for you to put sunscreen on your pupper's nose if he/she will have prolonged exposure in the sun... Pink noses can get sunburned.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to Original Article:

I have a 8wk old red merle puppie. He has 2 pink spots on his nose. Will his spots fill in or remain pink?