Suwannee Cockers
The Place for Natural Merles and Sables
SUNCATCHER'S ZUZU
ZuZu is a beautiful Blue Merle and white male.
What can we say? ZuZu is simply a stunning looking Cocker Spaniel. We especially love his rather straight and silky coat, as it is so easy to groom, and we love everything about his shape, from his rather boxy body with a slightly sloping topline, his nice long neck, his modern head--but not too modern--his front, the way that he stands and moves, plus he's rather small, but still within the standard. He's great! This picture was taken when ZuZu was about a year old.
ZuZu was the first male puppy of our own breeding that we kept here, and he lived with us for over two years before he was placed into a pet home in Old Town, Florida. Although he had one litter here, we finally decided that we just had too many closely related males here for the small number of dogs that we were breeding, and we also had no unrelated girl here to breed him to that was not carrying buff. ZuZu is carrying Buff recessively, and we discovered through his one litter that he is a dominant black, which hides both Sable and Merle, as he had no Sable or Merle pups in his one litter. Dominant black on the K Locus has just recently become understood in dogs, so although it seems obvious to us now, ZuZu being a dominant black when we chose to keep him to breed was not obvious at all to us at the time.
This is another one of our favorite pictures of ZuZu, taken when he was two years old, as it shows his very unusual eyes, which are so light that they are difficult to photograph. ZuZu is a quieter and less exuberant dog than his sire, Max, and his personality is much more like his dam, our retired silvery buff girl named Darlin, which is more reserved and watchful. But he is very bright and sweet and playful, and one thing that he does have in common with Max is that he will retrieve thrown tennis balls all day long.
We kept two dogs from ZuZu's litter, and here he is shown with his sister and littermate named Zelda, who is a solid Sable-Merle. Zelda also only had one litter here, and she now lives with her family in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
ZuZu got along very well with all of our dogs, and here he is shown with our chocolate tri Roan girl named Suzy Q, with whom he had one litter of five puppies. They had three buff and whites--surprise!--one chocolate tri, and one black and white.
This picture of ZuZu's only litter was taken when they were 24 days old, and there were three buff and whites, one black and white and one chocolate tri in the litter. Statistically one half of this litter should have been Merles, so there are most likely some Cryptic--or hidden--Merles in this litter, and we think that this litter proves very well that buff can certainly hide Merle, as perhaps can dominant black. It also shows that ZuZu is probably a tri on the A Locus, as there were no Sables in the litter. These puppies all had beautiful heads, and all were placed into pet homes, where hidden Merle will not be an issue, as they will not be reproducing. The chocolate tri male puppy shown at the right at ten weeks old was from this litter, as is the black and white girl in the two pictures immediately below.
ZuZu's daughter named LuLu, who lives in Palm Coast, Florida, seems to be really enjoying wheeling on the beach in the above picture!
And here's a close-up picture of LuLu, who is about a year old in this picture.
ZuZu has beautiful Blue Merle and white markings, and this picture shows them off particularly well.
This picture shows off ZuZu's Blue Merle markings too.
We love this picture!
ZuZu as a newborn.
ZuZu at three weeks old.
ZuZu at six weeks old.
ZuZu at nine weeks old.
ZuZu at three months old, taken with a new and better camera!
ZuZu at four months old.
ZuZu must have found something interesting to sniff in this flower bed, with his sire looking on from the dog yard. Dogs and flowers do not mix--and especially four month old pups--but we were trying to get a good picture of ZuZu, and he wandered into the flower bed. Fortunately he didn't trample our big, red stemmed ginger.
ZuZu has very dark ears, with hardly any Merle in them at all, which led us to think that he might have a black Shaded Sable overlay. However, when bred to a tri girl, which should have given us some Sable puppies, he threw no Sables at all, perhaps due to his carrying both dominant black and buff, both of which can hide Sable markings.
ZuZu is a beautiful boy, and we are very proud to have bred him.
Goodbye!
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