Suwannee Cockers
The Place for Natural Merles and Sables
We are a small American Cocker Spaniel kennel located in the beautiful Suwannee River Valley in Northcentral Florida. We also raise Cocker mixes, and we currently have a litter of our adorable designer mixes that will be available on March 28th. You may see pictures of our Bologcos--which are a mix of one part Bichon Bolognese and one part small Cocker Spaniels--at our Bologco website.
We have been involved with dogs for many years, with several breeds, but no longer show as we are "retired." We breed our Cocker Spaniels in order to have special dogs for ourselves--as we are interested in the more unusual colors and markings found in the breed--and we are especially interested in the genetics involved with these unusual colors.
AVAILABLE PUPPIESWe have no Cocker puppies available right now, but are taking names for our notification list for future Cocker litters. You may see pictures of the parents of our next litters on our Litter News page. We prefer to be contacted by E-mail, and to open an E-mail box, just click on the dog bone below.
However, our red and white male named Beau has recently sired a litter with a red Cocker girl that belongs to some friends of ours, and you may see the two little male puppies that are still available on our Litter News page too.
Or if you prefer to not use Outlook Express, please contact us at:
suwannee.cockers@gmail.com
We endeavor to raise our dogs in as natural a manner as possible, and this includes no longer docking puppy tails or removing dewclaws, as we feel that this once necessary operation to protect the tails and legs of hunting dogs in heavy brush in England is no longer necessary for modern pet Cockers. Also these surgery wounds allow germs to enter a puppy's bloodstream, and we know that we have lost puppies due to these procedures, as well as having puppies with scars and bald spots on their tails from serious infections, as raising puppies in the sub-tropics, with ever present microbes, is just not the same as raising puppies in very cool England. And ironically tail docking is now banned in England, as well as in Scotland, Wales and the European continent, but not yet here in the United States. We also minimize using toxins on and around our dogs, feed a meat based dogfood with no corn or soy, and we make sure that our dogs get a large amount of time playing out in the sunshine and fresh air every day, all to ensure producing the healthiest puppies possible.
The dog shown above and just below is our male named Max, who is a mahogany red Sable and white, but he is also a Cryptic, or hidden Merle, with blue eyes. Blue eyes are not always a sign of Merle in a dog, and Max has no Merle markings on his body. Max is the the source of all of our first generation Merle and Sable dogs, and you may see many more pictures of Max in the "Our Dogs" section of this website. And to see quite a few pictures of Max's past puppies, please go to Max's Puppy Page.
About this website: it is best viewed in 1024 x 768, and until the internet is "standards compliant" across all browsers, it is best viewed in Internet Explorer. The left hand column will NOT scroll in Mozilla. This website is also very large and very graphics heavy, so if you are viewing it on a dial-up connection, the pictures may take some time to appear, despite all of our efforts to make the pictures load rapidly. Also please note that throughout this website if you hover your cursor above each picture, a caption for that picture will appear on your screen. And we would really appreciate being notified about any misdirected or dead links.
This website was last modified March 22nd, 2008
This site contains over 30 pages of pictures of Cocker Spaniels, so we invite you to scroll down and stay awhile, and if you can't read all of it at once, you can bookmark us as a "favorite," and come back again later, when you have more time, as we are endeavoring to make this website all about pet Cockers. However you won't find much about showing Cockers here, as we no longer show dogs, and we now only breed for pets--both for ourselves and for others.
The following paragraphs describe the major sections of this website, with links to the relevant pages, but you may also navigate from the "Site Navigation" menu at the left top of most pages.
LITTER NEWS
We have litters periodically, but prefer to have them during the Winter and Spring months, as our Summers here in Northcentral Florida are so hot and buggy. But litters often don't come as planned, so we may have a litter available at other times of the year. We only keep a few puppies each year for our breeding program, so most of the puppies in each litter are availabe to loving pet homes. You may look at our Litter News page for information about expected litters, or any older pups or dogs that may be available. The puppy shown here is a solid Blue Merle and tan boy at about four months of age, who now lives with his family in Titusville, Florida. You may see more pictures of Zack in our Photo Galleries section.
OUR DOGS
This section of our website features a page for each of our current breeding dogs, and if we have raised the dog ourselves, you will see pictures of the dog from the newborn stage through to adulthood. Not every dog that we select turns out to what we want to breed, so we wait until our dogs are almost ready to breed before featuring them in this section of our website.
All of our dogs are indoor/outdoor dogs and are house trained. When breeding we try to balance out three objectives--sweet and even temperament, great health, and conformation or "type," which means what the dog looks like in comparison to the written standard for the breed--excluding color, of course. The chocolate tri roan shown here is our beautiful girl named SunCatcher's Suzy Q, and you may see many pictures of our dogs and links to their pedigrees from one central page. And to see more pictures of Suzy Q you may go to Suzy Q's page.
ABOUT MERLES
Pictured here is our little 17 pound Blue Merle, Sable and white male named Zecchino, who is marked like a Calico cat. You may read a discussion about Merles and see lots of pictures of Merle puppies and adults, on our page about Merle dogs. And you may see a whole page of pictures of Zecchino in the "Our Dogs" section.
And SunCatcher's Zariza is our newest Sable-Merle dog. She is a solid Sable-Merle with scattered white markings, and she is shown here at five months old. Zariza is the first puppy that we have kept with a fully intact tail, and thus she stands a bit differently than our tail docked dogs--not standing quite as widely for balance. And we think that this much more natural stance is more attractive than the typical wide stance of tail docked Cockers.
ABOUT SABLES
Pictured to the right is a nine week old Shaded Sable and white girl with an extremely heavy overlay of black hairs. Sables are the result of a gene that dilutes the undercoat of black dogs to red, and dilutes the undercoat of chocolate dogs to a lighter brown or even tan, although other color modifiers may dilute the Sable undercoat to cream, silver or blue, leaving an overcoat of what is sometimes called dark "guard hairs." And often a Sable cocker will have a dark mask.
There are two types of Sables in Cockers, and the "Shaded Sable" dogs, like this girl, have the lighter colored areas around the eyes, and the diluted undercoat, with a darker overlay of dark guard hairs, but "Clear Sables" may look just like Buff Cockers. You may read about Sables, and see lots of pictures of Sable puppies and adults, on our page about Sable dogs.
The picture directly below is of another, much lighter colored, Sable and White boy at about nine weeks old, and my, does this boy look like his Granddaddy Max!
PHOTO GALLERIES
Our Photo Galleries contain pictures of several of the puppies and adult dogs that we have placed into other homes. As an example, Dixie, the solid Merle girl shown above, lives with her family in Parrish, Florida, and you may see many many more pictures of Dixie in our Photo Galleries section. And we do hope to eventually have every color and marking possible in Cockers represented in our Photo Galleries.
ARTICLES
Our articles page contains links to various articles that we have written over the years, mostly concerning dogs, and the first article, called Raising Pups, is about how we raise our puppies, and pictured to the right is a black tri girl named Gracie, shown at eight weeks old. Gracie is from our Max and Suzy Q.
The next article is a very detailed and rather long article, covering three pages, on coat color and markings genetics in Cockers, and there is also a medium length article on the history of dogs. And the last is a short page about our six acre property we call SunCatcher Acres. We have plans for future articles, mainly on health concerns in dogs, and specificaly Cockers, so please come back again to read further.
DISCLAIMERWe appreciate your reading our disclaimer page concerning copyright and liability issues.
The black and white boy shown above is named Guss Guss and he is out of our red and white male named Beau and our blue Sable and white girl named Aidan. To see more pictures of puppies from our Beau you may go to Beau's puppy page.
MORE LINKS
The above symbol is a link to a website about pending legislation that would federalize dog breeding. This legislation is Senate Bill 1139 and House Bill 2669, and it is called "PAWS." We are opposed to this legislation, as we think that it will eventually drive all small, home-based dog breeders out of breeding, leaving only the large USDA commercial breeders and a few very wealthy breeders--those with enough money to build commercial USDA style kennels--as the only people left who can afford to breed dogs. This would severely limit puppy buyer choices, and further drive up the already rising prices of purebred dogs. We also feel that this legislation is federal intrusion where it does not belong, as the states, counties and municipalities have traditionally regulated the home breeding of puppies.
The above symbol is a link to a very interesting website about the political influence of dog owners. My dog votes!
"When people hear the name HSUS the first thing that normally comes to mind is your local animal shelters and how they help all the lost and neglected animals. Truth is, despite the words “humane society” on its letterhead, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is not affiliated with your local animal shelter. Despite the omnipresent dogs and cats in its fundraising materials, it’s not an organization that runs spay/neuter programs or takes in stray, neglected, and abused pets. And despite the common image of animal protection agencies as cash-strapped organizations dedicated to animal welfare, HSUS has become the wealthiest animal rights organization on earth." Thus begins a very thought provoking website dedicated to exposing the hidden agenda of the HSUS. So if you are at all interested in animal welfarre issues, this is a "must read" website, with many links to other very informative websites about the animal rights cult that is wielding so much influence on animal legislation now in the US. Just click on the above crossed out symbol to read more about "The Hidden Enemy."
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