Joanna's First Litter of Puppies Pictures of Joanna's puppies from the summer of 2006

Here are more pictures of Joanna's 2006 litter of puppies:
(This is a continuation of a series of pictures which starts here)

Madison loves the dry puppy food, and is now the largest of the pups

Toby used to be the largest of the pups, but not any more!

 Hudson is going to have a lot of freckles on his face and on his back.  They're just starting to show.

Malia is the most vocal of the pups.  With a face like that, she can get away with anything!

 Hudson, at five and a half weeks old.  He looks awfully grown up in this shot to me!

Toby is easy to identify because of his brown nose.  He's got neat blue eyes, too!

Speaking of eyes...   Malia's eyes have an interesting color, too.

 Hudson, in a shot that will almost surely make it on to the 2007 Zim Family Cocker Spaniel Photo Calendar

 Hudson (left) and Madison (right) at one day shy of five weeks old.

The three red & white pups...  using fabric bones for pillows.

I've been trying for five weeks to get a picture that shows Toby's blue eyes.  I finally did it!
He is easy to identify because he's the only red & white puppy we've ever had with a brown nose.

 Hudson

Malia

 
We always enlist the neighbor kids in our efforts to socialize the puppies.
On the left, Taylor holds Madison.   On the right, Natalie holds  Hudson.

While Madison and  Hudson snuggled with the girls, Toby and Malia enjoyed a nice nap wrapped up in blankets.

We've had chocolate & white partis in some of our previous litters, but never one with tan points.
Malia is our first.  Here she is at four weeks old.

Here's a group shot, at four weeks old.
(left to right) Toby, Malia, Madison,  Hudson

At 25 days old, I realized that one of the red & white puppies is genetically different than the other two.
Look at the difference in coloring of the two noses.   Hudson on the left, Toby on the right.
Toby's brown nose tells us that he carries the chocolate gene.

At 20 days old, it was time to give the puppies a few minutes on the lawn.
It's interesting to watch the pigment slowly filling in on  Hudson's nose.

Madison on the left, and  Hudson on the right...   in the friendly confines of our Puppy Palace.

18 days old

At this age, they are still sleepy almost all of the time

This shot might just make it on to next year's calendar

12 days old, and eyes wide open!  Her new owner has named her Malia.

Just the three red & white pups - one week old

Joanna and her puppies - five days old
The one with the little red dot on his forehead is the one that got stuck in the birth canal

Three days old

Joanna's ear makes a good blanket

Two days old

The puppies nursing at one day old.

If you're wondering how we got both red & white and chocolate & white puppies in our litter, all you have to do is meet the parents...

Joanna - the mom

Joanna is a red & white parti, so it's obvious how we ended up with red & white puppies.  But where did that chocolate & white puppy come from?  That's actually quite simple.  Joanna's mother is a chocolate & white parti.

Joanna is actually capable of making pups in three different colors:  besides red & white and chocolate & white, she can also make black & white pups...  although she didn't happen to have any in this particular litter.  How do we know she can make black & white pups?  Black is a dominant gene in Cocker coat coloring, and every parti colored Cocker is able to make black & white puppies.  Whether they will or not depends on the genes of the dog you breed them to.

Which brings us to the father.  Let's meet him!  He's a beautiful red sable parti that belongs to Vicki Wallace, a show breeder in Madera, California.  His registered name is "Shadyhill's Windquest", and his call name is "Merlin".

Merlin - the dad

Merlin's breeder is Jean DeWolfe of Shadyhill kennels in Novia Scotia, Canada... one of the top Cocker breeders in the world.  Jean started showing Cockers in 1959, and her parents and grandparents were in to Cockers starting in the 1930s.  She has won Pedigree's top Canadian breeder award six times.  Click here to see Merlin's pedigree, which is full of champion show dogs.

One of the most common questions I get is "Can I please get on your waiting list for a puppy?!?"  My answer is that it's not quite that simple.  We don't just place our puppies with the first people who sign up on a list.  We generally place our puppies with people that we know from our forum, or people who we've met at one of our Pupapalooza events, or with people who already have one of our puppies from a previous litter.  Also, we only place our puppies with people who live here in California, and we only place our puppies with people who are home most of the day.  Most of our puppies go to retired people, families with stay-at-home moms, or people who work from home.  Cockers are very people-oriented and don't do very well when left alone all day...  so we don't place our puppies with the typical American family where everyone is away at work or school during the day.

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