The Zim Family Cocker Spaniel Forum

I know this has probably been answered before but what is a "silver" cocker? I looked at the pic and he looks buff to me but I am still learning here so maybe I am missing something.

It is a much lighter shade of buff almost white but not quite. My first cocker was a silver buff she looked white but with a slight ivory color mostly on her back. Sorry it was before the days of digital camera's so I don't have a picture I can post. Silvers are beautiful and you don't see many of them around.

My oldest, Indy, is a silver, with buff markings, but when we got him our breeder had us register him as a silver. He has darkened with age but he is still significantly lighter than a buff. If you would like to see pictures of him as a pup, there should be photos in my first or second post, I will be posting recent pictures this weekend of you would still like to see.

(Put in a seperate post so it will bump as well.)
Something I forgot to mention before, is they have blue tinged skin. It was especially noticeable for Indy when he was a pup, but his ears are still clearly blue skinned, which I always forget and try to scrub off the dirt, when he's in the bath, poor Indy. Our breeder has a funny story about her first litter of silvers. She says something along the lines of, "When they were born, I didn't know what a silver at birth looked like, since they were blue skinned, I rushed them to the vet thinking that they were suffacating or dying or something really awful! When I get to the vet she starts laughing. I can't figure out what's going on, I think I have a litter of puppies that I just somehow am killing slowly and she's laughing. Then she goes, "-----, they're silvers! They're supposed to have blue skin!"" Its a lot more amusing if you have her extremely energetic voice in the back of your head.

Someone on here used to have a picture of a true silver, and there are some silver buffs here too, perhaps they'll post pics soon. I love the buffs, but the silvers are so pretty!

I second that!

Brady was a silver. He had the greyish hue to his skin. His fur was all the same color.

Thank you all I will have to go back to the pic if I can find it again to see if I can see any skin lol. I would love to see a pic - I always love pics lol. Now I might know what I am looking for.
I really think I want a tri color but you know how that goes - they pick you not the other way around.
Sandy thank you for the pics - I didn't see them till after I started this for some reason. Brady sure was ahandsome guy.

There is a difference between a silver, and a silver buff. Silver buffs are common, true silvers are not. Probably the rarest cocker color there is.

Here is the picture of a true silver. It is not at all a buff cocker but a black cocker that cannot extend their pigment to their hair to make it simple. It can not come out of a buff to buff breeding.

Thanks Julie, I knew someone had that pic somewhere! Silver buffs are gorgeous too, I remember one on here called Cody. But that true silver is just stunning!

Julie, is this why I occasionally find black hairs intermingled with Indy's silver hairs?

No that is something completely different. Indy would be a silver buff, not a true silver.

If you look on Jim Zim's website in the Cocker color section he has a picture of a buff puppy and a silver buff together so you can see the difference between the two.

http://www.zimfamilycockers.com/cockers ... oat-Colors

Emma your story reminds me of when SDSR had a blue roan come in. He was filthy and one of our intake coordinators was bathing him and scrubbing away thinking she had a really dirty black cocker. After awhile she realized, it was actually a blue roan!

I agree with Julie a silver is a black dog with a buff coat.
Norris

Can someone tell me what color Silver, Silver Buff, and Buff puppies are at birth???

It's tricky to answer a question like that with words, and a lot easier to answer it with a picture.

I did a quick Google image search to try to find someone with a good picture that shows newborn Cocker puppies in various shades of "buff". Here's what the best one I found:



Note the vast difference in color between the pup on the left (with the blue necklace) and the pup on the right (with the silver necklace). And if you look closely, under the mom's ear, you can see a third pup whose shade is a little less "red" than the one on the right.

Please note that when Julie Hydro talks about silver she is talking about a true genetic silver... a very unusual and rare thing. On my coat color page, when I talk about silver I am talking about how the term "silver" is commonly used in the real world of buying and selling puppies. 99% of the time when someone is talking about a silver colored Cocker, they are simply talking about a buff Cocker whose buff coat is not particularly red... a coat that is much lighter in shade than most "buff" Cockers.

Imagine you were the breeder of the litter of puppies in the picture above. How would you describe the pup on the left versus the pup on the right? I bet some breeders would say the one on the left is silver and the one on the right is buff. On the other hand, some breeders would probably say that the one on the left is buff and the one on the right is red!

The point is that there is nothing in the Cocker Spaniel standard that specifies the proper terminology... and that lots of people use lots of different terms however they see fit! So, it's always a little risky to rely on a text description of a "buff" Cocker Spaniel... and much more definitive to see a picture.

I always thought Baylee was a silver buff not a true silver. She had black hairs about 5 in one spot.

Just because I'm curious and want to make sure I've got this right, genetically true Silvers are actually Blacks with some sort of genetic fur coloration inhibition? Can it be bred as a recessive gene manifested or is it a random mutation? Do silver's have blueish skin or is that silver/buff? Sorry this is nerdy but I'm fascinated by the genetics.

OK ... now we are very confused... For those cocker spaniel color experts, what color is my Sky? I was told he is a "white merle" but is he really a "silver merle"???

Sky asks what color am I?????

Sky, I have had you on my lap and I always thought you were a rare white cocker. And what an adorable photo if I do say so myself!

Ok. Going crazy here

I reviewed Zim's color page as suggested. Accordingly, I looked Sky over one end to the other, no other color's showing. I'm stumped! I put Sky next to my brown and white parti (teddy the foster dog) and the whites match. I also put Sky next to my all black cocker -- no match per the discussion on silver. The pup at the end of the Zim color page is similar to Sky, even has Sky's nose and is also deaf but Sky has no other colors. Sky does get dingy when dirty -- so maybe he's a dirt and white parti

I would love to know what color Angel is too...or what color she should be..she has brown and pink skin over her body, like she should have been a parti colored cocker...she is off white, not buff but not white either....I know she is merle due to her eye color but I wouldn't call her buff.

Donna,

I have always thought Angel was gorgeous -- so maybe she and Sky are just strange merle variants -- "gorgeous" Sky has the same skin tones -- brown and pink (check his nose out) Sky is not off white though when he is dirty he looks off white I love the blue eyes especially as it makes for such cocker 'tude

Yep, I agree gorgeus merle variants! I love the blue eyes too! Angels nose used to look more like Sky's but changed to brown as she aged, it isn't solid though the inner part is lighter and there is a tiny pink spot on the bottom of each nostril. Her skin (when you wash her) looks like she should have been a brown and white parti as her pink skin has big blotches of brown skin but her coat is all off white. My vet thinks she is just beautiful..I just wish she would live up to her name sometime....she isn't always a little Angel. LOL!

Forgot to ad...I love Sky's summer do...our girls need a little trim right now too.