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Sedona, Arizona
Chocolate Merle American Bully for Sale
2 chocolate merle puppies are standing with me in Sedona right now, raised in the house and seen by my vet before they go home.
Yes, there are 2 chocolate merle American Bully puppies for sale here today. The coat is rare in the breed, and the first thing worth saying is that scarcity and quality are two separate measurements. I’m Greg Harpson, I’ve bred American Bullies here since 2015, and coat is the last thing I select for, well behind temperament and behind structure.
The chocolate merle puppies standing with me now
These are the only chocolate merle puppies in the group as it stands, so what you see is the whole of it. Each one has been looked over by my vet before they travel, with the dates written down for you to keep.
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The other coats here this week
If chocolate merle turns out not to be the one, here are the rest of the coats in the current group, closest to chocolate merle first.
The genetics behind a chocolate merle coat
Merle patterning laid over a chocolate base: b/b for the chocolate and a copy of M for the merle. The patches come through brown rather than black, over a paler ground.
Reading a chocolate merle, and what it gets muddled with
Confused with lilac merle, and once again the mislabelling favours the name that carries further. A chocolate merle is undiluted, so the brown patches hold a solid depth. A lilac merle has the dilution over the top and reads noticeably paler and dustier across the whole dog.
Where chocolate merle sits in the breed
Chocolate merle is the lower-risk merle, but only in a narrow and specific sense: it carries one of the two risk factors rather than both, because there is no dilution involved and so no coat condition tied to it. The merle question itself is completely unchanged, and it is the serious one. If I have a chocolate merle standing, the thing to ask me is about both of its parents, and I will give you a straight answer. Everything else about the coat is secondary to that.
Scarce, and it draws the same keen demand the other merle combinations do, so the marketing around it runs warm. Its one quiet advantage over the lilac and blue merles is that it carries only the merle concern rather than merle stacked on dilution, which is a genuine point in its favour.
To place it against its neighbours, here is how chocolate merle compares on how scarce it really is and on how often buyers go looking for it. The coats beside it in the table are the ones people most often weigh against chocolate merle.
| Coat | Rarity | Monthly searches |
|---|---|---|
| Chocolate Merle | Rare | 110/mo |
| Lilac Merle | Very rare | 170/mo |
| Chocolate | Uncommon | 110/mo |
| Merle | Uncommon | 480/mo |
| Blue Merle | Uncommon | 720/mo |
What this coat means for the dog’s health
The merle risk in full, which is the serious one. No dilution risk, though, because chocolate is full pigment rather than a diluted coat, so this carries only one of the two merle-family concerns.
Was the sire merle, and was the dam merle? One merle parent is fine. Two is what produces double merles, and you cannot read that off the puppy in front of you. Ask me about both parents of any merle here and I’ll give you a straight answer. A seller who won’t is telling you something.
Beyond the coat, the rest is about the breed rather than the colour. The full picture is here, and you can see how every coat lines up.
I don’t screen or certify the parents and I won’t pretend otherwise. What I do stand behind: every puppy is examined by Bell Rock Veterinary Clinic before it leaves, it has had DHPP with the booster and the canine influenza shot by ten weeks and been dewormed between two and ten weeks, the written record travels with it, and you take it to your own vet inside the first week. Any dog I breed can come back to me at any point in its life.
Asking after a chocolate merle puppy
Tell me roughly where you are and I’ll walk you through getting the puppy to you, whether that is me meeting you within a couple of hours of Sedona, ground transport, or a nanny who flies the puppy home in the cabin. I’ll also give you an honest read on whether this one fits your household.