Choco cavs!

I am interested in the different colours of cav's In the Buying your cav section there is an article on chocolate cavaliers. I was wondering - are these common? Do people still try to breed the colours - I can 't beleive that this colour combo is not allowed - hes' gorgeous (pic from Cochran cavaliers site)

Omg this pup is adorable :flwr: But I don't know much about this choccolate colour..

Look at the size of his paws....... I wonder what he looks like grown up - I checked the site but there doesn't seem to be any of this little one any bigger

Yes he seems to have a little bit big paws.. Can you send me the link on this site?

Beautiful little puppy .... don't know much about the breeding for colouring ... I think CKCS are so cute that it really doesn't matter about the colouring .. interesting though!!

Hi Sunna,

The website is http://www.cochrancav.com/chocolate/chocolate.html

Thank you :wink:


This is cute!! :flwr:

The gene is very rare; I don't think anyone deliberately breeds for them, but now and then a chocolate cavalier appears in a litter. There used to be all black cavaliers etc as well -- though not technically cavaliers I suppose as they were breed forerunners, since the breed is reconstructed.

Karlin said:

The gene is very rare; I don't think anyone deliberately breeds for them, but now and then a chocolate cavalier appears in a litter. There used to be all black cavaliers etc as well -- though not technically cavaliers I suppose as they were breed forerunners, since the breed is reconstructed.

Click to expand...

Black and white toy spaniels were seen alot in earlier paintings too.
The chocolate gene causes light eyes and light nose pigment (both are frowned upon in cavaliers). Sandy

WOW! :yikes they arebeautiful, i never knew that you could get them! I want one!

The chocolate is GORGEOUS! I like the lighter eyes and brown nose. I'm not into showing and I think the chocolate is wonderful. I would LOVE to have one.

:lotsaluv: :mexwav: So do I Aileen

The Chocolate Tri is stunning... That is such a beautiful color against the white... :flwr:

I had never even heard of this before, They are beautiful!!

When we were walking the dogs the other day my neighbour said she saw a Cavalier that was chocolate brown. In my snootiest Cavy owner voice I said "Then it wasn't a REAL cavalier...they come in 4 colours and anything else must not be a purebred!" (Yes - I am getting a little defensive about pet store cav's and their "purebred" status and odd markings - except for Kosmo who is just gorgeous Sara ).

It's a good thing I am typing because I can't talk very well my foot in my mouth I have since tucked my snooty cavy owner tail between my legs and fessed up to my ignorance

I wonder who decided thta the choc cavs ad the all blacks were not suitable to be officated into the Kennel Club breed standards?

I would have thought it would hav been much like the setters

gordon setter - black and tan
irish setter - red/ruby
english setter - they come in ruby and white and balck and white if I'm right?

I suppose the gene for the chocolate with the information Karlin gave is so rare its just not possible to - whats the word......."utilise" the gene pool as effectively to produce the highest quality off spring.

I don't know - I'm just speculating?!

the chocolate gene "muddies" up the nicer color traits - light eyes, light noses (which are highly frowned upon)

In all breeds a decision is made by the national kennel club body or in some cases a national breed club as to the standard for the breed and this included coat colours. The coat colours are not necessarily consistent worldwide -- Jen has noted for example that white schnauzers, while not a recognised colour in the US, is recogised in most of Europe including the UK and Ireland. Someone at some point decided that four colours for the cavalier would be the standard as they were appealing and all would breed true. The four colurs are nice and neat too, as there are two wholecolours, and then two particolours which are each wholecolour with a white overlay.

My understanding is that chocolate colours are not acceptable in several breeds-- probably because they do tend to make other aspects of the dog's colouring -- nose, eyes -- not conform with the standard. So maybe the objections is that you'd have to have a standard, and a chocolate standard. However some people will breed for colours in some breeds that are known but are not considered acceptable for showing -- I remember seeing some chocolate schipperkes on a website at some point when I was looking around at various small breeds.I think you'd want to know quite a bit about a breeder in any breed who was deliberately breeding for non-standard colours to make sure they kept other aspects of good breeding in mind. Sue explains a lot about genetics of chocolate cavaliers on her site -- I think they only pop up now and then whereas in some breeds they will breed true to that colpour (eg labs).