Cocker Spaniel Colours
When cocker puppies are born they are all white with coloured patches so a blue roan is born white with black patches and an orange roan is born white with gold patches. The roan colour area will “develop” and at some stages they can look really dark as the puppy fluff grows, but then drops out around 9-12mths. We guessimate how dark each puppy will be by how quickly the pigment develops and whether they have a black or pink skin pigment - but it is just an educated guess.
So there are a few tricks to estimating how dark or light a blue roan will be, but remember it’s just an educated guess at this stage...
We look to see how dark the ring on each foot pad is and how quickly the black develops the quicker this happens generally the darker blue roan the finally adult colour. And we look at the pigment under the coat and on the belly etc and again how fast & wide spread this is - if it’s very dark / black the then puppy will likely be a dark blue roan.
As adults all cockers tend to have black or coloured heads – the white areas roan out and almost disappear – leaving a silvery roan shading on the face.
It’s really hard to see from photos the true colour of the puppies, they always look quite white in the photos. The roan (black or gold hairs) start to become more prominent over the next few weeks and carries on developing until about 6 months.
The only colours allowed are included in the English Cocker Spaniel Breed Standard parti-colour (ticked, roaned, or open marked, with or without tan points) nor solid colour (with or without tan points).
You might hear about brindle or sable, cockers, these are not recognised colours and have come about through some form of cross breeding.
"Roan" is a coat pattern - that has a mixture of coloured and white hairs e.g.
All parti-coloured blue "roan" puppies are born black and white (like Friesian cows), over a period of weeks as the coat grows the individual white & coloured hairs mix to form the roan pattern. Likewise chocolate roan pups are born chocolate & white and orange roan pups are often born with very little colouring (often a silvery white coat, with no gold showing). As a puppy matures, the pattern starts to come through.
At birth, roan puppies have coloured pads, often fully pigmented, other times there is a 'halo' of colour around the outside of each pad. As the pup matures, the 'halo' of pigment creeps inwards & fills the pad. True black & white pups have pink pads with the odd speckle of pigment dotted about, they also have pink muzzles. These gradually fill with some colour (most notability the nose which usually becomes fully pigmented over time).
There are various shades of roan ranging from light (almost a "black & white" dog or "liver & white", "orange & white" etc.) through to medium, silver right through to dark - steel blue roan. The depth of colour depends on how many coloured hairs are present.
On the right is Tayla (blue roan) and Ginny (orange roan) who are full litter sisters.
Below are a series of photos that show the different colours, and how some of our dogs colour has developed! ... im still updating these
