When I got my first purebred dog (a Shetland Sheepdog) and decided to raise and show them, I didn’t go for the normal, “Lassie” color. I was drawn to the different ones. The ones labeled AOAC; meaning “Any Other Allowed Color”. That meant the tris, bi-blacks, bi-blues and blue merles. I loved being surprised by the delivery and seeing what colors and patterns would appear.

Growing up I fell in love with the unique colored horses too; Appaloosas, Pintos and one of my favorites; buckskin.

When a female dog gets pregnant with her first litter, there is usually some apprehension not knowing what she’ll produce and what kind of mother she will be. Well, I’m happy to say that Lucy has exceeded my expectations in the delivery and care of her first litter. And as an added bonus, she has produced some of the most uniquely colored Cavapoo puppies we have ever had!

Check these out!

The light ones are the girls and the dark ones are the boys. The girls are all blenheim with different amounts of the reddish/apricot spots. And the boys, well at birth I thought we had a black and white, a tri color and a blue merle. Yes, a blue merle! I have never seen a blue merle Cavapoo before. Lucy looks gray and white, but she is actually considered a merle herself, although her merling doesn’t really show. For those who don’t know, a blue merle is something you normally see in an Australian Shepherd, Sheltie or Collie where the coat will have various patches of gray with splotches of black mixed in with the gray.

Well, as day dawned and the puppy coats dried, I discovered that our “black and white” puppy is actually more like a dark sable or dark brownish/black with almost brindle marks in the colored spots.

And the tri-color which is usually black with brown highlights like eyebrows, cheek patches etc. is actually a dark brown (almost sable) with light brown patches. In the Poodle world he would be called a brown phantom.

So you can see Lucy has given us some very unique puppies indeed! I can’t wait to see what their colors look like as they grow and mature.