Border collies can have the same coats as Australian shepherds. Merle coats are recessive, so you have to breed a black & white coat or red & white coat with a merle... and see what you get. Twister (our puppy) is from a black & white female and a blue merle male.
Our last border collie, Dash, was from a litter with red & white female and a blue merle male... you can see what you end up with...
2 x red and whites
1 x black and white
2 x blue merle (they call it blue merle but it's actually black merle)
1 x red merle
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If you breed two black and whites all the pups will be black and white. Same if you breed two red and whites. If you breed a black and white and red and white they will be a mix of either color... but no merles. (and at the risk of too much information) you can never breed two merles together. Because they have recessive genes, if you were to breed two recessive gene dogs together the risk of recessive conditions like blindness, deafness, etc, increases exponentially. Every now and then I see someone trying to sell the product of a merle x merle breeding. The dogs tend to be mostly white, and very little coloring (perhaps 50%)
Don't get me started on tri-colors
Twister's dad, Hawkeye:
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Twister's mom, Snitch:
