The split face is not a separate color pattern per se, but a variation of pigment distribution seen in merles and sometimes in solids with blazes. The color splits down the midline of the skull with white on one side/color on the other, or merle on one side/non merle on the other. The mode of inheritance is unknown. It may simply be an aspect of fetal development rather than a pattern controlled by genetic inheritance. No known breeding tests have been performed to date to determine the heritability or lack of heritability of this trait.
Here is a mother - daughter pair of split faced Aussies, photo courtesy Claire Gustafson. Capricorn's Pajama Party "Jammie" is on the left, and her mom Capricorn's Blue Storm Brewing "Zoe" is on the right. Even though Jammie is a red merle and Zoe is a blue merle, their splits are remarkably similar. It is not known if the tendency to split pigment down the midline is heritable or not, but it is certainly possible.
"Moe" is a lovely red merle and white belonging to Dave and Audrey King. Moe shows a midline split from the cranium to the nose. There is a little bit of a blaze right above the nose to the right slightly obscuring the split.
This is Melanie Magamoll's "Spur". Spur is a blue merle with tan points and white, but here it is the white and the black that have formed the midline split. Spur has an interesting feature in that the white spreads across the nose in a regular blaze, so the midline split only comes slightly past the stop. The effect is dramatic and makes her a very striking girl. Photo courtesy Melanie Magamoll.
This is "Marge", a blue merle and white, belonging to Suzanne Olsen. She shows a beautiful split down the midline of black and blue merle from the top of her head to her nose.
This is Jake, courtesy of "A.J.". Jake has a very striking and unusual double split face. His pattern is split down the midline of his head like all the other split faces, but he also has a split on the horizontal axis between his eyes. On the forehead he's merle on the left, black on the right. At his eye level this reverses to merle on the right, black on the left. This double reversal is really unusual and very pretty to look at!
Merling sometimes divides in other unusual ways. Both of these puppies were bred by Lindsey Porter. They are close relatives of each other, though not siblings. The puppy on the left is Chocolate Chip, a red merle female. The puppy on the right is a blue merle male, unnamed at the time of the photo. These puppies both have their merled and nonmerled areas sharply split. In both cases the front half of the body is merled, and the rear half is solid or mostly solid. Merling is usually asymmetrical and can be completely different from one side of the body to the other. These pups do show the same overall rear/front split on both sides of the body. The fact that these puppies are close relatives suggests there might be some degree of heritability of this unique pattern. It will be interesting to see if this bloodline produces more pups marked this way.
© 2004 Lisa McDonald Feedback