Blaze is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (CKCS)- with a dash of working Koolie sheepdog. His mother was an accident – but such a lovely coloured accident that her owner Annika and I decided that it would be fun to breed a merle Cavalier and so bred her back to a CKCS. Blaze has the same coat and conformation as a CKCS but with a slightly longer nose, less prominent eyes and less domed head. He has a sound heart with no mitral valve disease and is not at risk of developing Syringomyelia which are two serious diseases which plague the CKCS.
The merle gene is very harmful if dogs carry a double dose of the gene but the hetereozygote (one dose) has pigment changes but no other problems and is common in many breeds producing many beautiful coloured dogs. I don’t usually breed for colour but this is so easy, it’s fun and the touch of sheepdog means our Cavoodles have added genetic diversity.
I’m going to keep calling Blaze and Ralph’s puppies Cavoodles because trying to encompass 1/16th Koolie, 1/8th lagotto, 7/16ths Cavalier KCS and 3/8ths Poodle in one name is just plain silly!
This is Ralph, Blaze’s son who has been with us since he was a baby. He’s only 1/8th Koolie – so nearly a purebred CKCS although no kennel club will ever recognise him.
He’s a loving and lovable little boy – named by my daughter Annelie for his ever so slight similarity to Ralph from the Simpsons. He was born on 19/3/14 and hopefully will soon be breeding us gold, silver merle and black puppies – unfortunately he doesn’t carry the chocolate gene so we cant hope for chocolate merle puppies from Ralph
This is his sister Pansy. She’s a sweet little flibberty gibbet of a dog – super friendly but perhaps not quite the sharpest pencil in the pack – she’s very wriggly and hard to photograph – but she will sit for a treat.
The clever Poodle in her Cavoodle puppies will complement her very loving and friendly nature. She carries chocolate so we can hope for chocolate merle puppies from her. I dont breed for colour but chocolate merles really are very beautiful!