Kennel Kilvan : Cifra mudi

About the Cifra Coloured Mudi

The purpose of this article is to enlighten the history of the Cifra colour variation of the mudi breed, tell about the inheritance of the colour, and present the problems related in breeding this color variant. The Finnish version of the article was originally published in the "Unkarinpaimenkoirat" issue 2/2004, which is the publication of the Finnish association for the Hungarian Herdingdogs. The article has been modified a bit for fluency and updated.

What is Cifra?

Cifra has been described as a color first time in the standard that was created by Dr. Fényes Dezső and Anghi Csaba already in 1936. The word “cifra” can be translated as “decorated”, and what other color would be more decorative than the blue merle. In the mudi breed the word Cifra is used to describe a color pattern known in many other breeds as Merle. Cifra was almost lost, since it was excluded from the standard for long time. Almost all current Cifra mudis have a common ancestor, Szabó Zsuzsanna’s Mudi bitch Picur MET Mu.1242/B/95.

There has been some controversary over the color. Some people doubt that the color variant hasn't originally been typical for mudi, but is in fact a result of recent crossings with other dog breeds. Some even go so far that they suggest that collie or shetland sheepdog crosses were intentionally brought for B-registration to get the color variant into the breed. On the other hand debat has gone over whether the color is caused by the dominant Merle gene, or by whole other gene, Roan.

The first question we can try to enlighten by taking a look over the relative breeds of mudi. It is true, that in pumi, puli and croatian shepherd breeds there is no merle coloration. But there are merle dogs in the French, German etc. herding dog breeds, that may have had influence on the development of the mudi.

The second question is; Merle or Roan? The dominant inheritance of the Cifra color suggests to merle. Merle gene affects random areas on the dog's dark coat pigmentation, and the pattern is visible already on new-born puppy, just like the Cifra colour is.

Roan is not visible on a new-born puppy. Quite opposite to the way merle works, Roan pattern only comes visible on the whitespotted areas of the dogs. The newborn puppy is clear black-and-white or red-and-white, and while the puppy grows, the Roan gene causes some ground-color ticking to start penetrating through the white areas, causing visually somewhat similar effect as the merle gene.

The individual hairs on Roan dogs are always either black or white or red and white. Merle dogs have many different shades in their coat, depending of the degree of dilution effect the gene had. One big difference between these two colors is, that there are no eye- or ear defects associated with the Roan-gene, however the double-merle dogs may suffer from eye or ear defects of various degrees.

Merle is a dilution gene that bleaches the original coat color from what it would normally be. A would be – black, brown or blue coat color will transform to a white speckled pattern that resembles marble stone. The Standard describes Cifra as, “Blue-merle; ie. black speckled, estriped, -brindle or -spoted on lighter or darker bluish-grey primary colour.” Only accepted Merle colour is Blue-Merle, but since in the Mudi occures also brown and blue dogs, as well as combination of these two, isabella, it’s possible that Merle colouring will appear on dog thats background colour is not black, producing Brown-Merle (Barna-Cifra), Ash-Merle (Hamvas-Cifra) or even Isabella-Merle (Hamvas-Barna –Cifra) puppies. So far, there’s been few Brown-Merle mudis born in Hungary, one to mention is the B-registered bitch Mászli, who has been awarded at the Hungarian shows and has even been titled Club Winner.

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH CIFRA

Heterozygote Cifra- mudis, genotype Mm, are beautifully speckled dogs. Homozygote MM dogs are often referred to as Defective Whites, and they may be seriously malformed. Problems related to homozygote Merle are eye-illnesses, eye-malformations and deafness.

Deafness is related to incomplete pigmentation of skin and coat. Merle gene is affecting the pigmentation of the dog, removing pigmentation, and deafness in homozygous merles is result of lack of pigment in the inner ear. In the breeds where both Merle and White Spotting are accepted colors, for example Australian Shepherd, the individual animal’s risk to be deaf is greater than average if the dog is extremely white spotted Merle. In Mudi breed white spotting has always been considered as fault, and high risk of deafness is related to homozygote Merles.

Also eye defects are related to homozygote Merle. Some individuals suffer from slight vision loss, but others are not so lucky and suffer from more severe affects of Merle gene. Some double merles are even born without eyes. It seems that amount of white on the dog is not connected to the degree of eye affects.

Because of these problems it’s not recommended to combine two Merle dogs. Also Merle-White and Merle-Maszkos Fakó combinations and puppies born from such combinations should be avoided from pairing with another Merle. The eye and ear defects can be avoided by mating merle dogs just with solid coloured dogs.

Sire		Dam		Merle	Black	Defective Whites
	+		=	50%	50%
	+		=	50%	25%	25%

TROUBLE OF BREEDING

To avoid defeted puppies being born, two Cifra coloured dogs should not be paired. Usually this is easy to avoid, just by looking at the colour of the parents. Sometimes there are tough calls.

Merle colour only comes visible in areas of the dog that have black, brown, ash or isabella colour. White dogs have no black hair and Maszkos Fakó dogs have only small amount of black pigment in the shading, and presence of Merle gene can be unnoticed. These dogs are called sable merle.

Heterozygote white – or sable merle dog is perfectly normal and healthy, but the risk occurs later if it’s been breed. A dog that appears to be normal white or sable but carries a copy of M gene is being paired with another Merle dog, half of the puppies can be defective whites, and suffer from eye- or ear defects described earlier. Maszkos Fakó is not accepted colour, and at the moment, it’s unlikely that such dogs will be used for breeding, merle gene or not, but white dogs born from Merle parent form serious risk.

Before mating a white dog who's one parent is merle with another merle, breeder should either gene test the dog, or mate it with a solid colored dog to see if it produces merle puppies.

Another problematic group is so called Phantom or Cryptic merles. Merle pattern is randomly created by merle gene. The amount of white or diluted colour can not be predicted. Phantom merle is dog, who has so little visible merle pattern, or the pattern is so dark that it’s almost impossible to notice. It’s also possible, but not very likely, that merle dog doesn’t have any visible merle spots. This kind of dog may produce merle puppies.

If there’s reason to doubt that a dog is phantom merle, it should not be mated with Merle dog before a test mating has been done to predict the probability of the dog being phantom merle. If a dog has a litter of five or six normal coloured puppies with another normal coloured dog, it’s likely that dog itself doesn’t carry Merle.

Phantom merles and sable/white merles can only be detected by using test mating. In many breeds, where sable and merle are both accepted colours (Shetland sheepdog, Collie and Great Dane) it’s not recommended to do merle-sable mating, because it’s possible that merle puppies won’t be detected. Mudi is one of the few Merle breeds where also ee-yellow occurs. Another breed where merle, sable and ee-yellow occur is Pomeranian. In North America some Pomeranian breeders breed Merle coloured dogs, and it’s not recommended to pair merle and sable or merle and ee-yellow dog, for the reasons stated above.

HISTORY AND CURRENT SITUATION

The first Cifra dogs in the pedigrees of today’s Mudis came up in 1990’s. Merle-coloured B-registered bitch Picur had two litters. The father of first litter was Béreny-Gyöngye Kabala Kaba (white). Three of the puppies were registered. Cifra-coloured male puppy from this combination, Csodabogár Ügyes Tádé, had big white spots. He’s behind most of Cifra coloured Mudis of today.

The father of Picur’s next litter was Csodabogár Nábob Ügyes, and in this litter there were only black puppies. We can say, that almost every Cifra Mudi of today is related through Csodabogár Ügyes Tádé.

Nowadays Cifra colour is popular in Hungary and other countries, and number of registered Cifras is quickly increasing. Because the color is dominant, it's easy to breed, since approximately half of the born puppies of a cifra parent are cifra colored. There is already Cifra-mudis in many countries outside Hungary, for example in Finland, USA and Canada.

Popularity of the color has created "matador studs". One of the most used Cifra-coloured breeding males of today is Sacáhazi Bajnok, who's father Cifrazurös Bakkancs Merse was also quite widely used.

Despite of the health risks associated to the merle-white and merle-merle combinations, both have been done in Hungary.

FUTURE

Along with the new standard (2001) Mudi breeding has become very colourful. Cifra pattern is one of the most wanted, and will probably just increase its popularity. Cifra is easy to breed, since approximately half of the born puppies will be Cifra. At the same time, it might be taking away the room of the more rare colours.

Famous Mudi breeder Csaba Zsíros has said:”We should breed Mudis, not colours”. I do agree with Csaba, there’s more to Mudi than just colour. Temperament and working abilities are not to be forgotten, but if beautiful colours will bring more friends to our breed, it’s positive thing. Colours are competing in same classes, and white, fakó, brown and ash coloured puppies often occurs in same litter with black or Cifra puppies. Hopefully in the future we will see even more beautiful, good tempered and healthy coloured Mudis in the rings.

CIFRA- LINES

Below there are some tables illustrations of the current Cifra- lines.

1-generation	2-gen.	3-gen.	4-gen.	5-gen.	6-gen.
Picur blue merle female	Csodabogar Ügyes Tádé	Cifrazüröz Bagó Bajus
Picur blue merle female		Cifrazürös Bujtar	Terulj-Fordulj Ádáz Terul-Fordulj Áldas
		Cifrazürös Bakkancs Merse	Szürkevillám Guba
			Szürkevillám Gyürü	Quendi-Rivendell Apaj Quendi-Rivendell Argali
			Sacaházi Bandita
			Sacaházi Böbe	Dunamenti-Nyájas Csincsere Becses	Bereki Janka Bereki-Tarisznyas Irka-Firka
			Sacaházi Bajnok	Sacaházi Dorcsik Kökény	Kökényfia Cimer Kökényfia Cibere
				Szürkevillám Igéretes Bitang Szürkevillám Igensac Legény Szürkevillám Igézo Boszorkány
				Sacaházi Favorit
				Sacaházi Hüség
				Sacaházi Levente Sacaházi Lehel
				Sacáhazi Merse Sacáhazi Menta
				Gonduzö-Alkonyat Vadvirág Csokor Gonduzö-Alkonyat Vakmerö Csók Gonduzö-Alkonyat Verhetetlen Cár Gonduzö-Alkonyat Virsli Csázsár
				Gonduzö-Alkonyat Tarkabarka Ékkö Gonduzö-Alkonyat Tünderi Emlék Gonduzö-Alkonyat Tüzön-Vízen Erös
		Cifrazürös Csábos Cifrazürös Csutak
		Cifrazürös Csibuk	Összigeti-Csahos Finác Összigeti-Csahos Fruszina Fruska
			Összigeti-Csahos Füles	Özugrato Angyal	Gonduzö-Alkonyat Szürkemarhak Fejedelme Gonduzö-Alkonyat Szenvedélyes Fodmeg Gonduzö-Alkonyat Szerett Futár
			Gutikerti Áron Maszat
			Gutikerti Arvaka Piszke	Gutikerti Cudar Pista Gutikerti Céda
		Cifrazürös Csinos Bonca	Szürkevillám Drágakö Tücsök
			Szürkevillám Ficsúr Szürkevillám Felhö

1-gen	2-gen	3-gen	4-gen	5-gen
Riblizi MET Mu. 2980/R/05 blue merle uros	u. Pásztor-Virtus Nemes
Riblizi MET Mu. 2980/R/05 blue merle uros	u. Pásztor-Virtus Ozora

1-gen	2-gen	3-gen	4-gen	5-gen
Mászli MET Mu. 1827/B/99	Pásztorálom Cicéro
Mászli MET Mu. 1827/B/99	Pásztorálom Gabika Csipet	Királytanyai Gyopár
	Canis Hungaricum Almás Rétes