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This page is designed to help explain what a Catahoula looks like and to provide general information about the breed. Proper breed identification is often a problem with Catahoulas. Many other breeds and crosses can superficially resemble Catahoulas and are frequently mistaken for Catahoulas or Catahoula mixes. Not all dogs with spotted coats and/or blue eyes are Catahoulas! Several breeds can exhibit the merle color pattern, including Australian Shepherds, Great Danes, Collies, Shetland Sheepdogs, Leopard Curs, Corgis, and Dachshunds. Mixes involving one or more of the above breeds can also be merle. Blue eyes are prevalent in both merle coated breeds/crosses and white spotted breeds/crosses. Catahoulas
can be blue leopard, red leopard, patchwork, and a variety of solid color variations |
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Blue Leopard - Refers to the blue merle color pattern. Blue leopards are black dogs with the merle pattern. Blue leopards are some shade of grey with black patches scattered throughout the coat. Blue leopards may range from mostly grey to mostly black. Sometimes the terms "grey leopard" or "black leopard" are used. Glass eyes - Refers to eyes which are blue or blue-white in color. Dogs with two glass eyes are often referred to as having "double glass eyes". Sometimes a glass eye will have darker colored sections in it and vice versa. When both colored and glass portions are present in the same eye, the eye is usually called "cracked glass" or "marbled glass". Leopard - Refers to the merle color pattern. The merle pattern breaks up the dog's color, so that some hairs lack pigment. The overall effect is a dilution of color, with some unaffected patches of dense color scattered throughout the coat. Patchwork - Refers to leopards with patches of several different shades in their coats. The background color may be white or very light, and the patches are usually large and scattered in such a way as to give a more torn or blotchy appearance than that of a typical leopard. This pattern is similar to the harlequin pattern seen in Great Danes. Patchworks may be blue/black based or red based. Red Leopard - Refers to the red merle color pattern. Red leopards are red/liver/chocolate dogs with the merle pattern. Red leopards are some shade of light reddish-brown with darker red or brown patches scattered throughout the coat. Sometimes the terms "brown leopard" or "chocolate leopard" are used. White - Usually, when a Catahoula is referred to as being "white", it means that the dog is primarily white with some areas of leopard coloration. White dogs are generally the result of being "double merle" (carrying two copies of the merle gene). White dogs often have hearing or vision problems. |
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Deafness - Unfortunately deafness is a problem within the Catahoula breed. Most bilaterally deaf (deaf in both ears) pups are excessively white. Why is that? Shortly after conception, the fertilized egg begins to develop into a variety of cells that will form the precursors to all the cells a dog will ever need to be a dog. Some of these cells are called melanocytes. These cells will change into two important types of cells - those that form the nervous tissue and those that form the cells that give color to hair, skin, eyes, etc. If there are not enough melanocytes, a dog will potentially not have enough nerves to do certain work or enough pigment in the skin, hair, eyes, etc. The lack of melanocytes can be partial (the dog has some hearing) or complete (the dog has no hearing). One or both ears may be affected. 
 This is Beethoven (or "Baby B" as we call him). He is bilaterally deaf, he wears a bell when loose outside, so we can find him should he run out of our sight (its not like we can call him back). The shots above are "baby pictures" in the pic on the right he is with Nanuq. "Baby B" is also mostly blind, he has two different colored eyes, one of which, has a small misshapen off center pupil. This eye does not work at all, and the other does not give him much vision, we suspect he only sees shadows. This makes him easily spookable at night... he doesn't know something is there, until its RIGHT THERE! Most breeders would have culled him... by the time we found out how many issues he had, we just loved him too much... and we figured we could keep him ourselves and give him a good life... and keep him safe, he is very sweet, and seems to be a happy boy. When we take the dogs to run in our field, he is in his glory. 
 Here
is "Baby B" today.. and his littermate/Sister Daisy (and her
famous stick)...
everyone who visits the farm, gets to see her do the "stick dance"
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