WELCOME!

WE ARE A SMALL AMERICAN COCKER SPANIEL KENNEL located in the beautiful Suwannee River Valley in Northcentral Florida. We also raise Cocker mixes, and you may see pictures of our Bologcos--which are a mix of one part Bichon Bolognese and one part small Cocker Spaniel--at our Bologco website.

We have been involved with dogs for many years, with several breeds, including Afghans, Salukis, Borzois and Shelties, 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.

Sable-merle and white Cocker male named Maximus von Bremer.

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. 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 on 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 blue eyed Cocker shown on this page is our male named Maximus von Bremer (call name Max), who is a sable and white dog. But Max is also a cryptic, or hidden merle, because although he does have blue eyes, blue eyes are not always a sign of merle in a dog, and Max has absolutely no merle markings on his body. Max is the the source of all of our merle dogs, and until the addition of our chocolate sable and white male named Rocky, the source of all of our sable dogs too. And Max has sired quite a few litters here with absolutely no health problems whatsoever.

Maximus von Bremer, sable-merle and white Cocker male.

ABOUT THIS NEW WEBSITE

RECENT CHANGES IN POPULAR BROWSERS have forced us to give up our old website, as one of the columns no longer scrolls in either Mozilla or Vista, and some of the pictures no longer come up for some unknown reason. And since the old website is so huge, we finally decided that it would take much more time to try to fix it than to just start all over with a format that works better in most of the modern and most popular browsers.

And we also need a "fixed width" format now, as the new, very large LCD monitors were stretching the old website so much that it became virtually unreabable. But bringing over most of the material from the old website will take a lot of our time, plus we want to add some new sections on health issues. So please have patience as we revamp our Suwannee Cocker website to make it better than ever!

SABLES AND MERLES

THE FOLLOWING PICTURES are of some of our strikingly marked merle and sable puppies over the past few years.

Zack, a merle and tan Cocker male.

ZACK is a blue merle and terrier tan marked boy who lives with his family in Titusville, Florida. Zack is out of our Max and a solid red girl named SunCatcher's Fiery Sparkle.

Dixie, a solid merle Cocker girl.

DIXIE is a solid blue merle girl who lives with her family in Parrish, Florida. Dixie is out of our Max and a solid red girl named SunCatcher's Fiery Sparkle.

Dixie, a solid merle Cocker girl.

DIXIE is a beautiful small Cocker whose long coat shows how striking the merle marking can be in this breed. Sprocket, a sable and white Cocker boy.

SPROCKET is a sable and white boy who lives with his family in Palm Bay, Florida. Sprocket is out of our sable-merle and white girl named SunCatcher's ZuLeyza and our red and white male named SunCatcher's Beaujolais Nouveau.

SunCatcher's Zariza, a solid sable-merle Cocker girl.

SUNCATCHER'S ZARIZA is a solid merle girl that lives with us, but we are just not sure of her markings, as she could either be a solid sable-merle, or a seal-merle and tan girl. But whatever the name of her very unusual markings, they remind us of an Aftican wild dog. Zariza is out of our Max and a solid chocolate sable girl named Glorious Sabled Abby.

SunCatcher's Zaffre Zecchino, a merle Cocker male.

SUNCATCHER'S ZAFFRE ZECCHINO is a either a sable-merle and white boy--or a seal-merle and white boy who throws sable--who lives here with us. Zecchino is out of our Max and a silver colored, solid buff girl named SunCatcher's Lil Darlin.

SunCatcher's Zaffre Zecchino, a merle Cocker male.

ZECCHINO has very unusual merle markings, in that he has patches of solid black interspersed with lighter patches of sable across his back, with more usual merle spotted markings on his head and near his tail. The above picture shows Zecchino's unusually marked back, with his head to the right, out of the picture. This type of merle marking is called "calico merle" in Cockers, but it is not thought to actually be related genetically to the type of marking called calico in cats.

CONTACT INFORMATION

WE ARE LOCATED IN THE RURAL GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA area, near Cross City, Florida, just a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico. We can be contacted by E-mail at:

suwannee.cockers@gmail.com

Send E-mail to Suwannee Cockers

Drawing of a Cocker Spaniel.

"A dog wags his tail with his heart."

Martin Buxbaum