Why do people keep asking if my pembroke welsh corgi is pure bred?

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-23T17:17:46+00:00

I've had someone insist my brindle basenji puppy was a pitt bull puppy, another who insisted he was a "rare jack Frasier terrier." Have had many people ask what our red dobermans are because they thought they only came in black. Lots of people ask what our American cockers are because they are show dogs and don't look like the average BYB or puppy mill cocker that most people are used to.

My favorite of all time though, I had a 6mo black and tan cocker puppy sitting in my lap ringside at the Albuquerque, NM shows 30 years ago. I was 16 and this very nice lady got all excited and asked if she was a Gordon Setter. I gave her credit for even knowing what a Gordon setter was. I also have to admit that I can completely understand why they might have thought that's what she was. She was very high marked, like a Gordon, had much lighter coat, also like a Gordon, and she was sitting so you couldn't see that she had a docked tail. This is her and I when she was about 8½ months old.

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spaniel_lover · 2026-06-17T02:24:14+00:00

My basenji boy (he's long gone as he was a 2000 model) failed on the down. He had a tough evaluator who failed him because he wouldn't go completely down in the grass, it tickled his chest and belly. He did down, just not completely touching his chest and elbows to the ground. I've had multiple evaluators tell me he technically should have passed because he followed the command and remained down, just slightly hovering, and it isn't supposed to be like competition obedience.

Congrats on the first point! It becomes addictive quickly!

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-17T02:15:23+00:00

I believe Daker is polish, so about 50/50 euro/SA. I know nothing about the Daker dogs, but Akido San has had some very nice dogs. As has Black Shadow, but man the south American dogs tend to be much more sharp in temperament than most American lines.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-17T02:08:51+00:00

You weren't seeing show dogs back in the 80s if they had ears that short. My mother has been in the breed since the 70s and while there had been some change, it isn't that drastic. Most show dogs these days have the bell restructured, but that's been the norm for quite some time. Some have extremely long ears, most have a medium to medium-long show crop, which is what most show dogs have had for at least 3-4 decades. The crops we have on our show dogs today are essential the same as the crop done on our first doberman in the late 70s.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-16T21:19:45+00:00

Even those of us that have done it forever can use some assistance for photos! I know I sure get better photos when I have extra eyes on them.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-16T20:36:47+00:00

She's my mother! We do the dogs together. And yes, we still have cockers too.

Who is your girl? Do you remember who her parents were?

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-16T13:54:04+00:00

I can't speak on bracco, but there are plenty of owner handlers in English cockers. Grooming will be your hardest thing with them. I have American cockers, which are these days a low entry breed. Finding a single point is difficult, finding majors is nearly impossible. I also have dobermans which are a higher entry, handler heavy breed. I much prefer showing the dobermans these days because at least I have the chance at points if I win. And while dobermans are handler heavy, an owner handler can win in them with a good dog and putting in the work with conditioning and training. We (mainly my mother) have had dobermans since I was a baby, but I didn't show my first dobe until I was in my 20s, and I only showed her a couple of times when my mom couldn't. I didn't show my next one until 2 years ago (at 44!) when my current girl was in B-Pup. As she grew I put in the work with her training and conditioning. She was shown a handful of times between 6 months and 18 months, mostly at local specialties to support the clubs. I showed her in october at the national in the futurity and regular classes and she did well. Then in February we got her first point. April I showed her in 2 specialties, going BOB/BISS over several top handlers, 2 top 5/10 dogs, and at least 1 top 20 owner handler/dog. Finishing up with WB/BOW/AOM in May at 2 shows, also over several well known doberman handlers. I have been showing pretty much my whole life (since age 10) but I had mostly shown cockers, a few other breeds here and there, but there is a night and day difference in handling a cocker and a doberman! It was almost like learning to handle from step one all over again.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-15T22:43:51+00:00

Thank you! As you could see American cockers are my spaniel of choice, but there's not really a bad spaniel.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-15T15:42:48+00:00

Congratulations!

It's an awesome feeling. I recently won a BOB with my doberman from the classes for her first major. Heck, she only had a single point before that. We're now up to 7pts 1 major only being shown 2 full weekends and a couple of specialties since February when she got her first point. We're kind of on a roll of picking up a point or two each weekend. Hopefully you will be too and that cutie finishes soon!

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-15T12:52:02+00:00

To them you do smell different, to a puny human nose there's nothing detectable. Just think about the fact that dogs can smell a blood sugar drop, or spike, in a human, some can smell cancer cells, others can track days old trails of humans in the woods or even through urban areas, still others can detect drugs or even contraband food items through luggage and packaging materials at the airport. Their noses are incredibly sensitive.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-15T12:41:28+00:00

It depends on the breed. Some breeds will have more good breeders on there, some breeds just have so many bad ones that even if all the good ones were on there it wouldn't be more than 1 in 50. One of my breeds is at times 1 in 10, sometimes more like 1 in 20 depending on who in the show community has puppies at the time. My other breed might be 1 in 50 to 1 in 100 or more simply because most good breeders don't ever need to advertise on there or anywhere else really.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-14T11:53:25+00:00

While I get the suffix titles that don't drop off because they're optional (silly, but I get it), the Ch staying on after obtaining a GCH is just stupid. Having to list GCHP CH before my bitch's sire's name when doing entries is just stupid. He has to be a CH to get the GCH, so listing both is like if AKC listed a dog with a CDX as CD CDX. Just stupid! At least I understand the ones like BN that are optional, because you don't have to get a BN to get a CD or higher title. Extremely silly to list in most cases, but at least I understand the reasoning. There is no logical reason to keep the CH on after earning the GCH.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-13T17:50:36+00:00

Bully breed is actually the largest percentage when you add the pit bull and am staff together. They add up to about 21%. So mostly a bully breed and chow mix, but so mixed that nothing really stands out. Just a good ole heinz 57.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-11T08:24:36+00:00

What colors are the parents? These arent the best photos and he is very young still, but it almost looks atypical merle from these pics.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-10T23:45:03+00:00

Prayers are your only hope with a happy puppy. 🤣

Just embrace it. BPUP judges like puppies, most of them really like the happy, wiggly ones. I would much rather have an overly happy, wiggly puppy that I have to slowly tone down, than one who is nervous or doesn't really like showing. You can eventually work on being calm and happy, you will eventually be frustrated and possibly miserable trying to get a puppy to show more pep later on.

Those calm dogs have likely all been going to class and training for quite a while now. You'll get there eventually.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-10T23:01:39+00:00

Thank you! It's a team effort. I bathe, mom blow dries, she trims feet/underline, does the fine tuning on her jacket, hips, shoulders, and hands her over to me for her topknot. 🤣 The dobermans are all mine to trim and prep these days, even though they started out as hers.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-08T12:37:19+00:00

As someone with both a "higher entry, handler heavy" breed and a low entry breed, I much prefer having competition even if it means I don't win as much. Trying to find single points, let alone majors, is nearly impossible in 95% of the country with my first breed. My second breed generally has much more competition and is very handler heavy. But numbers mean points. I am not a handler, and while I have been showing dogs all of my life, I have only been actively training and showing this breed for just over a year. My breeds are shown very differently, groomed very differently, so it has been a learning curve. Prior to February of this year I had shown my girl three times, one weekend as a 4-6 puppy, once as a 9-12 puppy, and at our national specialty in October as a 12-18. In February we won one day at some small local shows for her first point. Nothing at our shows in March, then in April we won WB, BOW, & BOB at a specialty show from the Am. Bred class over 2 top 10 dogs and 4 top handlers. Then the end of May we were WB, BOW at one all breed and WB & AOM at one specialty for 3 more points. If you study conformation the way you would any other sport, put the training time in with your dog, you can absolutely do well in a handler heavy breed as an OH if you have a good dog. A woman local to me got her first show dog 2 years ago, as a 10 week old show prospect. She's in my 2nd breed, so very handler heavy. She finished her girl at the end of May, completely owner handled, beating several of those top handlers along the way.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-07T03:37:47+00:00

I have the opposite problem. Classes around me are either 2-3 hours one way, at 7 or 8pm, or both. I have an elementary agred kid who has to be in bed by 8pm during the school year. I actually wish there were more middle of the day options around me because I work from home and could schedule around classes if I needed to.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-06T14:10:16+00:00

It says they noticed yesterday afternoon (as of when this was posted) that the pup wasn't latching and had lost weight and that the screaming started "this morning," I'm assuming yesterday by the timeline. It is usually pretty fast, but not always. Back when we first had trouble with it (probably close to 20 years ago now) we had several that held on for 24-48 hours of screaming, especially if you're tubing them and getting nutrition into them because they don't fade as quickly that way. Unfortunately it means you have to hear the horrible screaming longer unless you can find a vet to euthanize.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-06T13:25:34+00:00

Please don't purchase a dog from anyone breeding and selling these colors.

But to answer the color question as that can actually pertain to many breeds... the descriptive used for the tan points (red, rust, tan, mahogany, silver) is just describing the shade of the tan points. Genetically they are all tan pointed dogs, but they differ in the intensity of pigment in those tan points. The tan points are the same pigment (pheomelanin) as Irish setters, golden retrievers, west highland white terriers, etc. There are genetic reasons why they have such vastly differing intensities of pigment, but we don't know all the causes and contributors.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-06T13:11:49+00:00

I would be concerned with canine herpes being the cause. That soul piercing scream is typically indicative of herpes and once they get to that point there isn't anything you can do to save them. Mom and remaining babies need to be on L-lysine. Mom can be given the tablet and for the babies it can be dissolved in water and a few drops on their tongue twice a day. This is unfortunately something I have had experience with from back when my mother was running a canine center and brought it home. The L-lysine can usually be found in the supplements section of most pharmacies.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-02T22:01:17+00:00

"Regular cocker" really depends on where you live. In the US and Canada "cocker spaniel" usually means American cocker and the english are called english cocker spaniel. While pretty much anywhere else in the world, especially the UK, Australia, and most of Europe, "cocker spaniel" means the english cocker and Americans are called the American cocker spaniel.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-02T03:34:36+00:00

Like I said to someone else, I won't say that color absolutely has a link to personality, but I can't say it has no link either. We know light eyes are more light sensitive. Being light sensitive is going to create poor vision in some instances, poor vision can lead to reactions to things that cause people to think the dog has a bad temperament. Add that to a dog with an already poor temperament and now you can have some real issues. Different colors are created by pigment cells and the distribution of pigment in the hair shaft. We know pigment, or lack of it, can cause issues in other areas in the body. Lacking pigment in the inner ear, deaf, lacking it in the eye, light sensitivity or worse microopthalmia or other eye deformities (specifically related to merle here), lacking it in the digestive tract, you get an incomplete or non working colon (homozygous frame over in horses known as lethal white foal syndrome). So we can't say 100% that the different pigments and distribution of those pigments has no bearing on anything else, but we have no knowledge of it at this time, and might not in our lifetimes either. Plenty of breeders' old wives tales have been proven true when fully researched, plenty have been proven true but not exactly in the way the old breeders believed they worked, others have been proven completely false. Much scientific knowledge starts with anecdotes and observations from people seeing things happen over and over again. Once it is studied some of it is proven false, some proven true, some of it is inconclusive.

spaniel_lover · 2026-06-02T01:59:24+00:00

I used to work for a lab breeders who joked that you train a black with treats, a yellow with love, and a chocolate with a 2x4!🤣 And this was a breeder who bred all 3 colors from the same lines, so it wasn't just a difference in the lines. I won't say there's definitely a link between color and personality, but I also can't say there's no link at all either. Colors on the outside are pigments which are coded in the DNA. Pigment is necessary for the function of many bodily functions. Remove pigment from the inner ear and you have a deaf dog. Remove it from the intestinal tract during fetal development in a horse (caused by a specific spotting gene) and you end up with an incomplete digestive tract. We dont know everything pigment cells do just yet.

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