What Colors Do Aussiedoodles Come In?

Your looking for an Aussiedoodle (or any kind of doodle for that. matter) and you are getting confused by all the colors. What do all these colors even look like? I get it. It's complicated, and what makes it even more complicated is the fact that each breeder has their own reasons why they call a certain color the color they call it. Plenty of times, I see breeders listing puppies as colors they really aren't called.  There are SO many color options in doodles and its definitely a learning curve and takes lots of dedication to learn the differences between each color.  What complicates it more, is that lots of puppies look the same at birth, but as they get older - they change. With the Australian Shepherd already coming in a variety of colors itself, the Aussiedoodle is probably one of the only doodle breeds that comes in so many color options in its first generation.

So... lets take a look at some of the most common colors that Aussiedoodles come in below!

Blue Merle

A true "Blue Merle", sometimes referred to as "Black Merle" (because of its black base color) has a mix of black, gray and sometimes white.  The merle gene is a dilution gene, that dilutes the pigment on certain areas of the coat (causing the black to look a gray).  A neat side note on the merles, merles have the highest chance of any color at having blue eyes, the reason for this is that if that dilution gene hits over the eye, it can dilute the eye pigment as well to the blue color (instead of brown, green, etc).  Kind of neat, huh?  What's even more intriguing is the fact that you can have a "marble colored eye" that is both blue and a different color (black, brown, green, etc) which gives the eye an almost "merle" color look as well when you look closely.  Now - side note - there is also a blue eye gene in some breeds (for example: The Australian Shepherd) which can increase your chances at blue eyes but is not related at all to being Merle Colored.

The puppy pictured below has a Blue Merle Base (the black and gray colors) with a small patch of white on his front chest (often times classified as "Abstract") as well as a small hint of brown (which is considered "Phantom" markings). I'll dig into a few more of these markings below.

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