What do you think he is???

[MissingCobalt01]

Well.. Here he is. This is (was) Cobalt. He was rescued from the ASPCA (Humane Society) by my husband & myself. We had no idea of breed at the time. We just took one look at him & those big blue eyes, the nicely colored coat & his sparkling disposition & he captured our hearts, especially mine. So, here are some pics. They're kind of old, but not damaged.

[Dutchringgirl]

wow, a blue eyed Dutchie!!! Very pretty. Have no idea. Dont huskies have blue eyes?

[Sugars Mom]

Looks like a DS to me...LOL, I thought Dutch Shepherds were rare...but a blue eyed DS...now thats rare!! Super cool!

[Marjolein]

wow, nice dog, no idea what it could be, body looks like a DS, not like a husk?

[LyonsFamily]

I have an English Setter at my parents house that ended up with a blue eye mutation. His eyes look the same, but luckily he just looks like a puppy that you can't take seriously. This dog looks like it could control your soul. Looking at that second picture I want to do anything he asks, especially if he has the DS smarts.

[johninny]

sorry for your loss of Cobalt. he looks like he was one amazing dog!! it must be very difficult to be without him.
his stance [ 1st photo !! all DS attitude ], his looks, his description sound completely DS - so he had flukey blue eyes. maybe from something from far in the past, maybe a slight mix. does not matter in the end if he looked AND ACTED like a full-blown DS, which it seems he did.
i rescued TraceDog [ this month's masthead photo from 9 months before he died ] off the streets of Manhattan in early 2000 [ born sometime in 1999]. i did not learn of DS for 11 years, so i thought he was just some kind of fluke. now i have had and fostered 3 Ds since Trace died in july and can say there has not been one ioda of day-light between them and TD even at the level of minutia of movement, behavior, personality, etc. so TD had full-blown characteristics but tiny aspects of his looks would probably suggest to DS aficionados that he was a slight mix [ white toes, big white bib - which i think i see on your DS also ]. he started out with the typical black mask, but it went dramatically gray by the time he was 5 or 6, when i started getting photos and videos of him. he did have a double dose of intelligence that far exceeded in qualitative terms anything i have run into in other DSs or mals, so whatever else he might have had was really working for him.
after looking at videos and pics of TD recently, a shepherd/working dog lover suggested TD might have had a touch of husky. again, Cobalt's blue eyes...
anyway, COBALT & TD look remarkably alike and it is my bet that they acted and thought similarly also. you can get a good feel for Tracedog through his youtube channel www.youtube.com/tracesobaka let me know what you think if you take a look -- if they are similar as i am inferring.
will you be DSing again? tempted?

[MissingCobalt01]

Thank you all so much! I really appreciate your input! Even though Cobalt has passed, & since he was such a fantastic dog with everyone (except one man we met while camping. When he introduced himself to Cobalt, & asked if he could pet him, Cobalt's hackles went up from the top of his head all the way down to his tail. The he bared his teeth at the man. That's the most menacing look he EVER gave. The man backed off & I thanked my dog profusely! This was something Cobalt had never done before or since. There was something DANGEROUS about that man to have him react like that!) It shouldn't make a difference what breed he was. What does matter to me is that, with knowing he was at leas mostly a DS, there are others with the same type of loving, playful, goofy (my favorite nickname for him) attentive personality that he had.

To johnnie, Cobalt also had white toes & cross on his chest. He didn't have the big white bib though. I don't know if I'll have another DS again, but it's good to know that they are out there should I ever want one. Also, I am defiantly a "rescue" type, & I DID notice that there are DS rescue groups out there. Oh.. yes, will look at TD's Youtube video!

Thank you all SO VERY MUCH again!

[feraloup]

Wow. Gorgeous, just gorgeous. I'm no DS expert, being fairly new to the breed, but I've known and worked with many many other breeds in my life thus far. Honestly, except for the fact that I've never seen a blue-eyed DS before, he looks all DS in shape in my limited experience.

While maybe he may have some mix of something way back somewhere, it's not impossible for him to be all DS and have just had a unique genetic roll of the dice that gave him the blue eyes.

Jacob, a genetically pure and conservation-breeding approved stud of the New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation program (not a breed of domestic dog but subspecies of dingo,) was bi-eyed, meaning he had one blue eye. There's also a relatively recent occurance of what are being labeled and marketed as "panda shepherds" which, from what I know, are supposed to be genetically pure German Shepherds that have developed a spontaneous color mutation that gives them huge splashes of white in their coat. So he may very well have not been mixed with anything and just had a spontaneous mutation to give him those haunting soul-seraing eyes.

So sorry for your loss, you must miss him terribly. Thank you for sharing him with us!

[MissingCobalt01]

Thank you feraloup... He was AWESOME!!

Wow to you too for having a New Guinea Singing Dog! I've only heard of them, maybe seen a picture, but had no idea there was actually a conservation program for them or that they were even ownable. Doo you have any pics? What does a Singing Dog sound like? We used to have a Basenji & she was quite talkative for being a "barkless" dog...Well she never really barked, per se, she would howl & it sounded NOTHING like a dog. We often were told it sounded like a crying baby or a one sided cat fight. LOL

[feraloup]

*lol* One-sided cat fight, that's funny! I actually don't have a full-blooded Singer, My Maiyou is a pitbull/Singer mix.

I rescued her from a gas station in Ohio when my brother and a friend and I were returning home from a Martial Arts training festival we'd attended there. (We live in VT) She was only 4 weeks old. I couldn't believe it when the idiot college kids trying to hand her off told me her age. "Where's her mother?" I asked. "In Colorado" came the blase reply. Apparently, the mother dogs belonged to a friend who was leaving the area and wanted to get rid of the pups and so asked them to give them away for them. (There'd been 7 in the litter apparently, but the other 6 already taken, I often wonder what became of them,) The mother was a pit-mix and the father was a mystery caller. I already had 2 dogs, but couldn't stomach leaving the wee thing behind with them, way too young to have been weaned yet and being fed a slurry of canned adult dog food mixed with water, and so decided to take her home with me and foster her until she was old enough to go to a real home. I lived with and worked for a kennel owner and doberman breeder at that time, and knew that Myeeda would take her in. (Myeeda was a super foster-mom, loved puppies, would try to steal other dogs puppies, and even if she didn't have a litter of her own, would often spontaneously lactate if given puppies to foster, so she was often given another dog's pups to raise if the actual mother had too large of a litter or couldn't care for them in some way.) Maiyou's 12, now, by the way... so you can see how well my "only fostering her for a while" idea went... My brother and our friend thought I was kidding when I said she was coming hime with us until I got in the car with her. "Oh, you mean you were serious...?"

She's a weird, quirky and unusual dog in many many ways, creepily clever, way high prey drive, coukld climb trees, and was a master houdini at getting out of anything. She can even unsnap the spring-clip on a lead. And yes, she sings. I saw an article on Singers in a magazine and realized "Holy crap! It's Maiyou!". So I made contact with the NGSD Conservation Society, and the folks at NGSD International, and was assured that, based on photos and behavior descriptions, yep, short of a DNA test they could confirm that they were 99 percent sure a Singer was what I had on my hands. I was also informed that there is a large Exotics market in Ohio, and often Singers go through there, and, due to Singers' avowed abilities to be a total containment issue, her mystery father was most likely an escaped Singer.

I'm part of several Singer-related yahoo forums. I also have a friend here in VT who has 2 full Singers. (Actually one,now, as her elder dog has passed on,)

I will say, having raised Maiyou, (along with lots of other dog experience) is one of the reasons I had full confidence that I could handle a DS pup! My little man, Mokume, while a DS through and through and enough of a handful, is mellow by comparison! Every time Maiyou shoots me a reproachful glance at something he does, I remind her that SHE was worse at this age!

[feraloup]

Addendum, I forgot to mention, your mention of Basenjis reminds me, there are several, several Singer-folks who also have or use to have Basenji as well as Singers. Apparently the two dog-types have some things in common and people into one or the other often get interested in the other.

[MissingCobalt01]

Addendum, I forgot to mention, your mention of Basenjis reminds me, there are several, several Singer-folks who also have or use to have Basenji as well as Singers. Apparently the two dog-types have some things in common and people into one or the other often get interested in the other.

Yes!! This is so true! When you were talking about your Singer mix... I was thinking "That sounds familiar" LOL.

I was probably 14 when my parents brought home Mitzy to Anchorage, Alaska. They were down near Tacoma WA going through my grandmother's things & getting her will in order after she died. My dad looked out the window when he spied this little red haired, perky eared, curly tailed dog just wandering the street wearing a dark green plaid wool jacket. He went out & called her & she came right up to him. Then he says "You're coming home with me." Not being one to pick up wandering dogs, my mom just gave him a perplexed look & said "She's wearing a collar with tags. Don't you think we should find her owner?" So they did. She lived a few blocks away & when they got there, they found out she belonged to a little old man, whose wife had passed away. Just shortly after their daughter gave him the puppy to keep the man company. "You want her?" the man asked once my parents & him talked for a bit. Dad pipes up, "Sure!" The man told Dad all about Mitzy's "behavior issues" but Dad took the dog anyway, not believing that this cute little dog in the plaid jacket could be that destructive.

Dad got a hard lesson in patience when Mitzy chewed her way out of her wooden crate. Another when she chewed completely through a 1-1/2 inch solid oak core door. Things didn't go so well when she chewed up a custom made 20 foot couch though... But he forgave her eventually, but then she got a steel crate for when no one was home. She finally out grew her chewing behavior at about 7 years old. We had a very good time with her though. She as quite a character!

[vneerland]

He is gorgeous! Very nice package. Maybe a dash of DS, who is to say, and maybe no dash at all, but he sure has the shape of one.

While maybe he may have some mix of something way back somewhere, it's not impossible for him to be all DS and have just had a unique genetic roll of the dice that gave him the blue eyes.

No, that is not possible. Almost wish it were, since it is really nice looking, but helas. Cobalt got his haunting eyes somewhere besides the DS genepool, but it sure came out looking very very nice indeed.

Welcome to our forum, Cobalts former owner. Sorry for your loss. Would you mind writing a short into in the new member section and creating a signature for us via the user control panel, top left? So we can keep up with the whoiswho? We hope you stick around.

[LyonsFamily]

It is possible if it was a genetic mutation in just him or a birth defect. Below is a picture of Myles, one my English setters that lives at my parents' house. His father was my Juniors show dog. I know both lines fairly well and nothing like that ever occurred before. Both pure, registered lines coming from champion hunters and there wasn't another sire in the breeding. No other siblings got the eyes, and mom and dad both have brown eyes.

According to the reproduction vet, it can happen when the dog is slow developing, especially in runts and although rare, it may possibly be happening more often than people think, but the dogs may be culled. Something about a lack of pigmentation or the color never developing. His eyes got lighter and lighter as he aged. Myles also is 15 pounds smaller than the rest of his siblings, and has ear problems because they are too narrow and probably didn't develop enough inside.

It most likely was a random mutation, but the female got spayed and neither produced another litter, and we decided to keep him to prevent "rare blue eyed dogs" out of the gene pool just in case it could be something passed along.

Myles

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Him with his brother (who has correct UKC conformation)

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Another female setter with one blue eye whose owner sent me her picture when I mentioned Myles on a forum.

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[feraloup]

Sorry took so long to post this, but the combo of my lack of computer access, and also wanting to ask Don's permission before using and posting his photos of his dog in another forum. This was Jacob, a genetically tested "pure" New Guinea Singing Dog, approved for conservation breeding. He was bi-eyed. Jacob's eye anomaly was just that an abnormal eye color caused by some little glitch in the pigments of one iris. None
of his offspring inherited it, so it was not genetic but merely a developmental "mistake" in his individual makeup and it did not affect Jacob's desireability as a breeding specimen for conservation purposes. Photos are posted here with permission from Don Ehrlich, the owner of both the dog and the photos.

[animallover]

Wow, beautiful pic. His eyes almost mimic a wolf's gaze.