You may or may not know that the Merle gene in Poodles is quite controversial and a heavily debated topic amongst breeders. First, the Merle gene in itself does NOT cause any health issues in Poodles. It is recommended to never breed Merle to Merle, as you risk 25% of puppies being double Merles and that is where the issues can arise. Double Merle puppies (no matter the breed) can be blind/deaf. I will NEVER breed two Merle dogs together. This is one good reason why genetic testing is so important as there are other genes that can mask the Merle gene. All of my dogs are genetically tested.
Many breeders will insist that Merle is not a natural coat trait in Poodles, and therefore a Merle Poodle cannnot be purebred. The truth is no one knows 100% where exactly the Merle gene came from in Poodles. We do know that Merle poodles are regularly registered with the AKC, and genetically DNA tested to be 100% pure Poodle. One argument is that there is no "Merle" color option when registering a Merle Poodle with the AKC. It is important to note that there is also not a specific color option for registering Parti, Phantom, Brindle or Sable. Merle is often registered as "Black & Silver" or "Brown & Tan".
So where did the Merle gene come from?
One theory, and the theory I personally find to be the most likely, is that there have always been Merle Poodles, just not VISUALLY Merle Poodles. It was likely an ancient, natural mutation that just wasn't visually expressed for a period of time. Let me explain. For a very long time, it was a misconception that multi colored Poodles were flawed. This even applied to Poodles with a cute splash of white on their chest. Poodles were bred with intentional solid coats, for example red Poodle to red Poodle (or black Poodle to black Poodle). Breeding a red Poodle to a red Poodle will always produce 100% red offspring. BUT, red masks Merle. Red/Cream/Apricot are very common coats in Poodles which can all be genetically Merle. Merle could not have ever shown up visually until people realized that there was nothing wrong with multi colored poodles, and started breeding other colors to red. This would then allow the Merle gene to be visually expressed.
No matter what, at the end of the day Merle Poodles are AKC registrable and all of my poodles are DNA'd as 100% pure Poodle. They are healthy and happy with amazing temperaments, which is what is most important. Beautiful & unique colors is just an added bonus 😉