This is probably a really dumb question but I'll ask anyway.
I've come across a couple of blue roans recently with very similar markings to Misty , not so much the depth of shade but the position of the black patches. Mary's Lottie are almost identical too. I've also noticed photos of some show Cockers, including the famous Tracey Witch of Ware, who have the patches in the exact same place also. I presume this is a bit of a lottery really where the patches occur but was wondering if some marking patterns are a lot more common than others ? Misty has one at the base of her tail, a large circular one a couple of inches further forward and then a kind of stripey one near her left shoulder.
Whilst I'm asking silly questions, here's another that I've wondered about.
When looking through books with photos of past show champs it is noticable how up until the early 60's the Cockers had much less feathering from their undercarriages and very little,if any, on their rear legs compared to their modern counterparts. The pre-war dogs also seem more elongated, many of them are a bit "bum-high" and most have longer docked tails than you see now . Is this all to do with natural evolution helped by breeding from the best dogs, alterations in the breed standard that breeders aim to reproduce or just a change in fashion ? It seems odd that the whole look of the Cocker has changed so dramatically over as little as 60 years. It has changed for the better, I think...... some of those older photos don't really look like Cockers as we would know them today, at all. incidentally Jimmy seems a bit of a throw back, in that he looks more like a 50's cocker than ones you see nowadays in shows.
