Black
Pomeranians

Judging the Legs.

     I set out to purchase a really good black Pomeranian female after my first initial "pet" purchase. When I purchased my first REAL Pomeranian brood, I had a choice of black or orange in the litter. The orange was the largest bitch in the litter, the black a little smaller. I chose the orange. She was a quality bitch, even by today’s standards, with VanHoozer bloodlines going back to an English champion in her fourth generation. A few years later, I "rescued" the black sister. Both were so typey I felt privileged to get such nice broods. Had I known then that I had lovely "show quality" bitches, my Pom showing days would have started sooner. They were my foundation. They were 5 and 4 pounds respectively and had five and four pups per litter respectively in their free whelped litters. I raised some really good puppies from those two. The black being just as good and coated as the orange. From then on I was really hooked on blacks. I promoted the black color against very firm prejudice. The prejudice now seems like a breeze compared to how rigid it was back then.
     After going to the VanHoozer kennels and seeing the gorgeous International champion reds and oranges and sables, I knew I wanted to raise puppies like that. I also saw the 4 generation bred blacks that I felt needed crossing with the red and orange International champions. So my goal was set – I had to raise blacks that looked like the reds and oranges. How?
     My 25 years of horse breeding taught me how the Appaloosa and Paint horse breeders became "overnight" successes with their breeding programs so I "borrowed" the theory to put it to use in my blacks (and parti color) breeding program. Voila! It words on dogs just like it does on horses!
     About 20 years ago I had the good fortune to acquire 7 jet black sisters that were gorgeous and had enormous coats and happy attitudes (special note: they retained their teeth into their teens). My foundation broods and these blacks have been the basis of my black breeding program.

     I don’t breed for color strictly for the sake of producing that color. Quality and type and soundness of mind and body are first. If I produce color with no type, that is anticlimactic – no pleasure in that at all! So, no matter what color I pursue, type and quality have got be there.
     Fortunately, I’ve had good coated blacks with good type. When I first attempted to raise blacks, I could never get a black puppy out of non-black parents. I had to have at least one black parent to get a black puppy. In my early years of raising blacks, I never crossed black to black, I crossed the blacks to reds and oranges to "make sure" I didn’t get any coatless wonders. I rarely breed black to black now even though I have three black bitches I breed to black "Travis" (Ch. Finch’s He Walks On Water). A recent cover photo of an orange champion, Ch. Finch’s The Legend Continues, is the result of black to black breeding (June ’97). The black bitch Carolyn Crockett is showing lacking only a major to finish Finch’s Midnight Moonwalker is the result of black to black breeding. And three more blacks Finch’s Walkin On Cloud Nine, Finch’s Walkin In Fashion, and Black Lace are also black to black breeding.
   In my early years of breeding blacks to my reds and oranges, I never owned or bred to a black and tan parent, but yet I got several flashy black and tan puppies. (Usually, it’s common knowledge that in order to get black and tan, you have to have 2 black and tan parents – apparently, the black in the background helps produce black and tan.)
    Breeding black into the reds and oranges enhances the color clarity of the pure reds and oranges. And another bonus is, it wipes out those horrible dudley noses and eye rims. (Noses and eye rims are to be black except on chocolates and beavers where they are to be self-colored.  Dudley is the lack of deep pigmentation.)  I’ve seen color bred deep reds go dudley because of such heavy color breeding concentration. It isn’t necessary to sacrifice pigmentation in color breeding. Most any color breeding would benefit greatly from a dash of black to enhance coat color and put pigment back in the traditional colors.

What used to be a "least favored" color black is in reality the savior for the traditional "pure oranges and reds"  --kind of an ironic twist of fate for the underdog--