Are blue eyes an automatice deaf sentence?

Cats, dogs, horses, and sometimes other pets of our acquaintance, sometimes are born with one or both eyes blue.  When both eyes are the same color is it called homochromatsism, and heterochromotsism when they are different from each other or sometimes two colors in one iris.  This is not a defect, a throwback, or even any kind of a problem.  So why do people ask if my dog is blind in one eye? Sometimes they ask if he's deaf on that side. The right side of my hairy beast has a white, or low pigment 'switch' on, for lack of a better term. The eye on the right is blue.  The black side of him, his left, has dark pigment genes switched on, and hence, the common brown eye.  The flash, of course, shows you mostly a red eye and a green tapetum on the left.

 

 

Many animals have the ability to pass on blue eyed genes.  Sometimes, the gene connected with the low color pigments is related to the gene for audio processing in the brain. A pet with an all white coat, white skin, and blue eyes, although not albino (no color), may indeed be deaf.

 

Merles are often born with blue eyes, and they are not deaf, even when both eyes are blue. We often see in the Paint breed of horses a white face, called a bald, and if it includes the eye area the eye is often blue.  Again, no deafness.  Of course, a truly white horse doesn't exist as the genes for white are lethal. 

 

Many genes tag along on others, and in specific cases we may call some of these sex-link genes.  It's why females are rarely colorblind, that gene being passed on the Y chromosome in humans. In chickens, female chicks will grow adult plumage that matches the rooster, and the males will mature with the plumage of their hen momma. Alas, it doesn't work with all breeds.

 

The long answer, then, is no, blue eyes are not an automatic "deaf" sentence.  To check your pets' hearing, stand behind them when they are interested in something in front of them, and make a noise, as long as the noise doesn't make so much wind that your pet can feel the noise!  If they turn about, they heard you.  You can also snap your fingers behind their head and see if that gets you a response.  Most dogs and cats can read our body language, and will come when called even if their ears didn't hear you (and their blue eyes saw you!).

 

 

All white dog, both eyes brown.  Not deaf, and not blind!