Suwannee Cockers
The Place for Natural Merles and Sables
OUR DOGS
Our dogs are both our house pets and outdoor dogs, and as we are retired we are almost constantly interacting with them. We have a lot of fun with our dogs, and they have fun with each other, and we try to give them as natural a life as possible, as dogs always love being indoors with people, but they also love having plenty of room outside to run and play. We also no longer dock our puppy tails, as we feel that docking is no longer necessary for pet Cockers, as Cockers are no longer used for hunting, where their longer tails could be injured in heavy brush.
We only breed pet dogs--not show dogs--and we stress temperament and health above everything else. Thus we have a wide assortment of "types" of Cockers to mix together, for a wider gene pool. We practice positive assortive breeding, rather than the unhealthful inbreeding or linebreeding, which is often used to fix show type, as just about everything about the modern show Cocker is recessive, whereas most of the features of the older types of Cockers are dominant, as they should be after over 700 years of selective breeding for Spaniel performance in the field. We describe our breeding methods more fully at the bottom of this page, in our "Philosophy of Breeding" section.
And from this page we have links to several individual pages about some of our dogs, and each page has many pictures of each of those dogs. But some of our newer dogs do not have pages of their own yet. And we have recently changed some of our breeding plans--as explained below--and we should now have some merle and sable litters available in the 2007-08 Winter season.
OUR BOYS
Maximus Von Bremer: Max is our oldest dog, but he is still very active, with an exuberant and rather comical personality. He is also a rather rare Cocker, in that he looks like a mahogany red Sable and white dog, but he throws all sorts of colors and markings, including Merles, so Max is a hidden or "Cryptic Merle." Max also has the most beautiful blue eyes that we have ever seen in a dog. We have created a whole page of pictures of our Max. And we have also created a whole page of Max's pups to show what Max throws.
Max is now available as a stud dog, for either pick of the litter, or a $500 stud fee--our choice. Max throws stunningly marked, very healthy puppies, who have had no health problems. Max is registered with the AKC (American Kennel Club), APRI (America's Pet Registry, Inc.) and the CKC (Continental Kennel Club.) For more information about our requirements for a stud from Max, please contact us at:
suwannee.cockers@gmail.com
To see Max's pedigree, please go to Max's AKC pedigree page.
SunCatcher's Zaffre Zecchino: Zecchino is a most amazing little dog! We know that he is a Blue Merle and white, and also a "blue" Sable, but his markings are very similar to a Calico cat. Zecchino has two blue eyes and is out of our Sable-Merle named Max and our now retired silvery Buff girl named Darlin. Zecchino is a boxy little dog, weighing just 17 pounds, with an absolutely tremendous coat. The word Zecchino (Ze-ke'-no) is Italian for "sequin," as his two bright blue eyes remind us of shiny blue sequins. Zecchino is also a very sweet natured dog, just like his sire, and he is what we call a "pet hound," in that he is always hounding us to pet him. We have created a whole page of pictures of our Zecchino, with links to his dam and sire's AKC pedigree pages.
Zecchino had one beautiful litter in May of 2007 that included chocolate--after several different tries as a stud dog--but we have since decided that he is just too small to offer as a stud dog, as he could be injured trying to stud a larger girl. But we do have plans to breed Zecchino with a 15 pound red and white girl named SunCatcher's Dolcetto D'Alba, shown below, and there should be some Merle puppies in this litter, as well as some parti buffs, and possibly sables too.
SunCatcher's Beaujolais Nouveau: Beau is our elegant red and white male, who not only has really striking "open" markings, with lots of white, but he is also wonderfully sweet natured, with a very typical Cocker personality. Beau carries several other colors than red, and he has thrown blacks, chocolates, golden buffs, silvers, tris, sables and blue Merle, all of which depended on who he was bred with, of course. We have created a whole page of pictures of our Beau and we have also created a whole page of Beau's pups to show what Beau throws.
Beau is available as a stud dog for either pick of the litter or $350--our choice. To see Beau's pedigree, please go to Beau's pedigree page. Beau has only a few champions in his 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 very pretty Sable puppies. Beau is registered with the AKC (American Kennel Club), APRI (America's Pet Registry, Inc.) and the CKC (Continental Kennel Club.)
For more information about our requirements for a stud from Beau please contact us at:
suwannee.cockers@gmail.com
Shandilyn's Rocky Caramel is our newest and youngest male, and he is a very handsome chocolate sable and white boy with wolf like yellow eyes. He is not available as a stud at this time--not until he is proven, and we know more about what he will throw. But we are thrilled to have this boy here, and he is an extremely sweet natured boy. Rocky has the rather large "mini-St. Bernard" head, and a REALLY heavy coat, both of which come from the show lines behind him, and we expect to have puppies available from Rocky sometime in 2008, in Merles and Sables, and in both blacks and chocolates.
Rocky is a beautiful dog, and is extremely sweet natured too. We plan on breeding Rocky with some of our younger Merle girls who are carrying chocolate, and who are both much lighter coated than Rocky, for more managable coats on Rocky's puppies--once these two girls are old enough to breed, sometime in 2008. SunCatcher's Zariza, a solid sable-merle girl, is shown further below on this page, and we will have new pictures of her sable-merle and white sister named SunCatcher's Zanzi on this page soon. Both Zariza and Zanzi are carrying chocolate from their solid chocolate sable dam, so they are sure to have chocolate puppies with Rocky. And these litters will very much be "out breedings," as both of these girls are from a long line of pet dogs--especially on their dam's side.
To see Rocky's pedigree, please go to Rocky's pedigree page.
OUR GIRLSWe have recently placed three of our older girls, so we will not be having a lot of Cocker litters in 2008. But we have also recently rearranged some of our breeding plans, so that at least we can have a few Cocker litters, with Merles, available this coming Winter--2007-2008. So if you would like to be on our notification list about these upcoming litters, please feel free to contact us at:
suwannee.cockers@gmail.com
We are only planning litters with Merle in them for the future, but as both of our Merle males are also Sables, we should also have Sables available.
M's Suwannee Girl Aidan is a beautiful black sable and white girl, from our Max and a solid red girl named Sparkle. You may see Aidan's pedigree by looking at her sire's pedigree page and her dam's pedigree page.
Aidan is a rather small girl with just a beautiful little body.
This picture of Aidan shows her grey or "blue" Sable undercoat. We do not have a page built for Aidan yet, although we have lots of pictures of her. But it takes us from 8 to 12 hours to build a webpage for a dog, so we are having a hard time keeping up. We are also seriously thinking of moving Aidan to our designer dog litters of Bologcos, as she is so small, and as she throws such small pups.
SunCatcher's ZuLeyza: Our beautiful Sable-Merle and white girl named Leyza is out of our Max and and a chocolate tri girl named Suzy Q, and she is looking very fuzzy in this picture, taken in January of 2007, as we did not want to clip her until the weather got much warmer. Our dogs spend a lot of time outdoors here in Northcentral Florida where we can have very sudden and dramatic shifts in temperature and weather, so we leave their coats longer in the Winter. But we can see at this point that Leyza is going to have just a tremendous coat, just like her dam.
You can also see in this picture that Leyza has a very partial black mask on her muzzle that is mostly hidden by white spotting. Leyza does not have her own page completed, as we just do not have a lot of pictures of her yet, but you may see Leyza's pedigree by looking at her sire's pedigree page and her dam's pedigree page.
This is a side view of our pretty Leyza, showing her nice stance. Leyza is a very lively girl--sweet and smart too--but she is turning into our largest Merle girl yet, and she will probably grow to be a regular sized Cocker. This is logical, as her dam was a larger girl, but we were hoping that Leyza would grow up to be smaller.
Leyza had some Merle spots when she was born, but they have faded into her Sable diluted coat, and only her one blue eye gives any clue that she is a Sable-Merle instead of being a regular Shaded Sable. Leyza has a beautiful clear white coat, with virtually no ticking or roaning, and she is a very prettily marked parti Cocker.
We had planned on breeding Leyza to our new chocolate sable and white boy named Rocky, sometime in 2008. But we have now decided that Leyza and Rocky are just too much alike--both in their coloring, markings, and especially in size--as they are both some of our largest dogs. And they both have very heavy coats that are hard to manage, so they would probably produce puppies with monster show coats that would just be "too much" for a pet home--and too much for us to mange too, as we try to keep at least one puppy from every Cocker litter. It can take up to three hours to property groom a show coat, and most people do not want to spend that kind of time on grooming their pets, or even pay a professional groomer to do so, as the cost escalates with the more time involved.
Leyza has had one litter from our red and white Beau, and we hae kept some of her chocolate sable-merle and white girls. But all of her other puppies were presold to people on our notification list for her liter.
SunCatcher's Margaux is a very attractive black tri girl that comes to us from D'Tresors Kennel on Whidbey Island in Washington State. We plan on breeding Margaux to our Zecchino, sometime in 2008. Margaux is a very sweet girl, and we have absolutely fallen in love with her.
We think that Margaux's saddle backed markings are very attractive, and a bit different from a lot of our more open dogs, so she will widen our gene pool as to markings. And if Margaux is not carrying buff, then we should get some very pretty merle pups from Margaux and Zecchino. To see Margaux's pedigree, please go to Margaux's pedigree page.
SunCatcher's Zariza is our newest young girl, and she is from our Max and a solid chocolate sable girl named Abby. Zariza has the most amazing markings, and we expect to breed her to Rocky sometime later in 2008. They will throw either Sables or tan pointed dogs, and of course about half Merles. Zariza is carrying parti and chocolate, but hopefully not buff.
Zariza has one dark brown eye and one partial blue eye. You may see Zariza's AKC pedigree by looking at her sire's pedigree page and her dam's pedigree page.
For information about our notification lists for any of the upcoming litters that we have mentioned above, please contact us at:
suwannee.cockers@gmail.com
OUR PHILOSOPHY OF BREEDING
We are reformed show breeders. We used to believe that only show people should be "allowed" to breed for "quality" dogs, and that breeding for conformation to meet the breed standard was the only excuse to breed dogs. However, we are now reformed from those views, and we now believe that every dog deserves to be a pet first, and that every dog should be bred to have great temperament as a pet, over everything else, as 99.9% of all dogs will be pets, and not show dogs. The only exception to this that we can think of are true "working dogs" who have actual jobs to do, but this is a very few number of dogs compared to the numbers of pet dogs.
It has taken us 30 years to become enlightened in this respect, but we are having a lot more fun with our dogs now, as we can see each dog for its individuality, and breed to ALL of its strengths, and not just for conformation. Thus we get to breed a dog that has a wonderful personality, but would be overlooked by a show breeder due to something very small, like white spots, or the dog being just a bit too small for the standard, or the muzzle not being as short or as wide as the current fashion in the show ring. For one thing that we discovered when we were showing was that the breed standards were subject to interpretation, and that judges and breeders who prefered a particular look could, over a few years, actually change the type of dog that was winning in the ring, and thus every breeder would start breeding more for that type of dog.
But the main reason that we changed our minds about how we breed was the realization that only breeding to the current show winners was severely limiting the gene pool in many breeds, and thus leading to health problems, which is the main reason that you see so many breeders advertising that they "health" test. We are fortunate with Cockers in that they are basically healthy, and regularly live to quite an old age for a dog--often to 12 to 15 years--but Cocker breeders are unlucky in that the health problems that occur most often in the breed--cataracts and glaucoma--have no genetic tests, and it is not even known if these disorders are truly genetic, or simply come as geriatric problems in such a long lived breed.
And this change in our attitude about breeding has really been "freeing," in that now we are free to explore the unique Cocker colors and markings that have so fascinated us for years, but are not allowed into the show ring. And we no longer have to worry so much about breeding "cookie-cutter," look-alike puppies, but can celebrate the individuality of each of our puppies, especially now in their different colors and markings. All of our dogs have AKC pedigrees, and Spaniels have basically been purebred for almost 700 years, so all of our Cockers are most certainly still Cockers--just Cockers with a little variety!
Thanks for visiting our website, and we hope you enjoy all of the dog pictures. The picture below is of Leyza and Zecchino playing, and Zecchino has such a thick coat that we finally had to clip him, and we are all much happier now!
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