#wocker princess

[doomspaniels]

Guinevere is getting downright feathery.

Golly, she's pretty!

[doomspaniels]

The Continuing Evolution of Guinevere's wocker coat:

She's developing a shark fin?

[doomspaniels]

For anybody following along with Guinevere's wocker coat, it's been changing again this spring. She has new fluffy undercoat growing long around her shoulder to her elbow, across her ribcage, and along her thigh--all about where a show cocker's skirt would start.

The feathers on her belly started like this, first long soft downy fluff, but then eventually grew in stronger long guard hairs. Her foreleg feathers, pants, and tail feathers are mostly strong guard hairs.

Her ears and the top of her head are still soft underfluff. The hair on her ears melts away to nothing if it gets slightly damp, like cotton candy.

[doomspaniels]

Chest curls, we have definite chest curls!

[doomspaniels]

Happy first birthday, Guinevere! Here's a sampling of how you've influenced the world since you arrived in December.

[doomspaniels]

Gwyn wrestles with her big unicorn [no sound].

Get that unicorn, Gwyn, get it! So ferocious!

[doomspaniels]

Chilly.

[doomspaniels]

Your two spaniels look so different! Are they American or English spaniels? Is one a mixed breed? Also I love them and they are adorable!

Thank you! They're delightful, and I am so glad to share their silly faces with everyone.

Tristan is a 3-yr-old American cocker spaniel, bred for the conformation ring. Guinevere is a 1-yr-old English cocker spaniel, bred to hunt in the field all day. They're not just different breeds of cocker, they're as far apart as they can get and still both be "cocker spaniels." But it's so fun to watch them, because the brains inside those skulls still have essentially the same set of instincts.

Because they're both pets, and I teach mostly fun tricks, all their scent behaviors are pretty much instinct and their own practice. They catch the same scents, they move with the same bouncy trot, they follow trails with the same amount of assuredness, together or independently following the same paths.

They enjoy tricks, they like to carry toys and fetch, they want to play, they want to cuddle, they have the most unbelievable ability to get into things they should not be able to get into.

Here's a post I wrote briefly comparing all my cockers, though I don't know much (if anything) about the backgrounds of my three previous cockers.

And I wrote this comparison of Tristan and Gwyn after watching them together for two months.

I have loved the attentive, playful mischief brains of all our cockers. It's very enjoyable to see these two together, so different but so the same. I'm looking forward to Guinevere as an adult, with a little less undirected puppy fidgets and a little more attention span.