Suwannee Cockers
The Place for Natural Merles and Sables
SUNCATCHER'S BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU
We have finally taken a few decent pictures of our young male named Beau. This red and white dog is so active, and he loves to run so much, that it is very difficult to take a decent picture of him. He is rather shaggy looking in the above picture, as it was taken in January of 2007 and we do keep our dogs in heavier coat during the Winter, as we do get some chilly weather at times down here in sunny Northcentral Florida. Our handsome Beau has been bred to four different girls so far, and to see quite a few pictures of Beau's puppies, please go to Beau's Puppy Page. Beau has his DNA profile on file with the AKC.
So far we have been able to get some good pictures of Beau mostly lying down, as he just becomes a blur in the camera image when he is up on his feet and moving. And Beau is one of our dogs that enjoys being outdoors more than indoors, we think because he loves to run so much. But he is a rather quiet dog in the house, and is not a nervous dog at all, nor is he a heavy barker.
Beau is a very typical "wiggle butt" of a Cocker, and he is always friendly, always playful, and always seems to be smiling when we approach him. We bought him to get some new blood into our lines, and we are extremely happy with his typical American Cocker personality, and his beautiful, very open-marked coloring. He also stands and moves beautifully, with both his head and tail up, and we are very grateful that he is not much of a barker.
We are also surprised that his white areas are "clear"--with only a very small amount of freckles on his nose--as his sire has so much ticking that he looks like a Roan. Beau also has some very nice Sables behind him, on both sides, and he has thrown some very pretty Sable puppies, with very deep red coloring.
Beau plays very well with all of the other dogs, and he and Zecchino have been especially close buddies. This picture was taken when Beau was about five months old and Zecchino was about seven months old, and the difference in their coats is very apparent in this picture, as well as the difference in their size, as Zecchino is now about eight pounds lighter than Beau, at 17 pounds, while Beau weighs about 25 pounds at two years old. Zecchino has just a tremendous coat, which we find very difficult to deal with, while Beau has what is called a "sport coat," which is more like the old-fashioned Cocker coat from years ago, when Cockers were actually used as hunting dogs, running out in the brush. And people who have gotten a puppy from Beau that has turned out to have a sport coat are actually rather pleased with the easy care "sport coat," as it requires so much less grooming, and can be left longer in length, with less effort, than a very heavy Cocker coat.
We love this picture of two tails pointed in unison! Aidan is a Blue Sable and white, and you can just see the blue (really gray) Sabling on her side in this picture. She seems to have a very heavy black Shaded Sable overlay. Aidan and Beau have had one very nice litter in the Spring of 2006, and we are contemplating another litter from them sometime later in 2007.
We first saw Beau when he was three weeks old.
Another picture of Beau when he was three weeks old. He looked almost white at this age, and one could just see the beginnings of some colored spots on his body. His tail is really there, just stuck down between the cushions of a black leather couch.
Beau was so cute when we picked him up at eight weeks old, so of course we took a lot of pictures. But he did look a little dubious about being in a new place. You can see that his nose hadn't yet filled in with color at eight weeks, and it sometimes takes up to three to four months for nose color to entirely fill in--if it ever does in diluted dogs.
Even at eight weeks old Beau was very nicely up on his feet, and he could really move out, so we did a bit of chasing the first few days.
Beau really loved this orange stuffed monkey because it contained a squeaky toy. But the toy didn't stand up to his little sharp teeth, and we had to take it away for fear that he might choke on the noise maker.
Beau is very alert and pays attention to everything, but he hardly barks at anything, which is refreshing in a Cocker. But when he does bark, it is very deep, and sounds as if it is coming from a much larger dog.
Beau quickly adapted to his new home, and made himself right at home. Here he is lying out in the driveway, resting after a round of play with Paco.
Beau at ten weeks old playing with Paco the Rat Terrier who lives next door.
Beau really loves squeaky toys. This picture was takan at about four months old, which was about the time that we realized that he wasn't going to have a lot of ticking after all.
Beau had really changed by the time that he was eight months old, and at some point we are going to figure out how to put a video feed on this website, as we would really love to show how this dog moves, always with his tail and head up--he's lovely. But here he is standing still, sniffing something, but at least then we can get a focused picture. And we can see how a hunter would like to have such a white marked dog, as they can really be seen, and kept track of, from a distance.
Beau is even whiter on his other side.
Beau is our sweet and handsome boy.
Goodbye!
To see Beau's pedigree, please go to Beau's pedigree page. Beau has only a few champions in his pedigree, and his pedigree is mostly a "pet dog" pedigree. But the few champions that he does have are very special, including one of the very few Sable and white AKC Cocker champions, named Ch. Artistry's Soot and Cinders, and Beau does indeed throw some very pretty Sable puppies.
And one of the other champions in his pedigree is Ch. Ging's Alydar, who is featured on the cover of the giant book of show Cockers called The World of the Cocker Spaniel. If you are at all interested in the history of showing Cockers, and/or looking at many hundreds of pictures of Cockers, starting at the early beginnings of the American Cocker breed, this book is available from Amazon.com
Our dogs are a mixture of lines from show dogs, pet dogs, and even dogs from commercial kennels, as we are using "positive assortive breeding" theory in order to breed healthier Cocker pups. And we are certainly not opposed to showing dogs, but are very concerned about the rise of health problems in the purebreds that we believe is being caused by rapidly diminishing gene pools. This diminshment has a variety of causes, including anti-breeding pressures from animal rights groups, the rising costs of raising dogs, and fewer litters being bred from show dogs in general, which puts more pressure on show breeders to hit a "home run" with every litter, resulting in show breeders often using the same most winning sires over and over and over again for litters. We have researched all of our breeding dogs back at least five generations and we are currently researching back ten generations in order to determine if we are actually doing any significant amount of linebreeding in our dogs.
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