I was hoping to meet a few reputable conformation breeders who show merles on here! It's a bit off topic but since it came up... I love show people, god bless them, and our pure breed dogs wouldn't look the same without them. They develop a standard by which you can measure to a certainty, what a pure breed should and should not look like, act like, ect. All pure breed dogs are manufactured wholly by human intervention, for whatever purposes they were created, and not always to the benefit of the dogs. Why would you want long silky fur all over your body that needs to be constantly brushed, cleaned, groomed, and mats so easily that you will get sores all over your body if it's not properly cared for? Or that your body is deformed to the point where you can barely breath, can't mate naturally, and need C sections to bear young? All of these breeds are to standard. I came from the rescue world as well, and have seen animal abuse like you could not believe. I don't always agree with standards either, but it's not up to me. The merle color gene is pretty benign to me if the breeder is knowledgeable, responsible, focus on good health, and testing, and make sure ALL of their dogs have loving forever homes. Especially after dealing with more than one bull terrier(And one Cairn!) with rage seizures, a doberman and a mini aussie with wobblers, and a whole slew of other heart breaking genetic disorders that slowly kill, cripple, or shorten a dogs life. I would take the rare cases of blind/ and or deaf dog that comes from irresponsible breeding(You would know at birth btw. It doesn't come up later.), that can still have a good life any day. Maybe because I have trained blind and deaf dogs that had no idea what they were missing, and were just as capable of love. I don't condone merle to merle btw, and love my show friends, but I do think you need to have a love of your breed, but a little bit of a god complex to be a conformation breeder. No disrespect intended, and just in my humble opinion.