What's New?
We currently have no available Bologco puppies. But we are hoping for more litters in 2009, and for information about how to be put on our reservation list for future litters, you may go to our Puppy Page. And our contact information can be found at the bottom of every page on this website.
For Your Information
The Florida Statute 828.29 states that no dog, puppy, cat or kitten may be offered for sale without a health certificate from a veterinarian, nor can any puppy or kitten be sold under the age of eight (8) weeks of age.
Dog Registries
Market Place
WELCOME TO BOLOGCOS AT SUWANNEE!
We are a small kennel located in the beautiful Suwannee River Valley in Northcentral Florida. We also raise purebred Cocker Spaniels and other Cocker mixes, and our our aim in all of our breeding is to produce healthy, happy dogs with superb temperament that can fit in with their new families and become beloved pets and companions.
The adorable little dog shown above is a silver-cream colored Bologco boy named Goobie who lives with his family in Ocala, Florida. Goobie is the lightest colored Bologco that we have ever produced, and we just love his adorable "Teddy Bear" expression, with his very dark points.
And this adorable little dog is a pale apricot colored Bologco girl named Sophie who lives in Gainesville, Florida. Sophie is as lightly colored as Goobie on her body, but she has much darker ears.
And the Bologco shown just above is an apricot colored boy named Tucker who lives in Navarre, Florida, with his family that includes five boys. Bologcos make great family dogs. And we just love the way that Tucker's beard is trimmed, and he is also the dog pictured at the very top of this page.
And the Bologco shown just above is a cream colored girl named Daisy, shown at about six months old, and Daisy lives with her family in Yankeetown, Florida. Her owners tell us that Daisy weighs is a very active and playful little girl who loves to go for car rides and rides on the golf cart. Goobie, Tucker and Daisy are littermates.
A Bologco is an adorable, first generation designer dog mix that is one part Bichon Bolognese and one part small American Cocker Spaniel. Our Bolognese male is named Guido, and he is a bit larger than the average Bolognese male, at 13 pounds, so he is able to mate with our line of smaller than average Cocker girls, who range from 14 to 18 pounds. So we do expect that our Bologco adults will eventually weigh under 20 pounds, and probably average around 15 pounds. The breed mix name is pronounced "Bo'-lo-co," with the accent on the first syllable, and with a silent "g," and Bologcos are registered with the American Canine Hybrid Club. The ten week old apricot Bologco puppy shown above on the red garden bench is from our second Bologco litter.
We believe that a Bologco is the perfect sized pet, as it is not as small or as fragile as a toy dog, so the Bologco owner does not have to worry about the dog breaking a leg jumping off of a couch or a bed. But the Bologco is easily picked up and carried by an adult person, and this little mix is still sturdy enough for a romp in the park or on the beach, or to play with children or grandchildren. The mix is created from two very friendly and playful breeds, and of course American Cockers have been a favorite pet dog for generations of kids. And the hybrid vigor--called heterosis--in such a purebred cross makes for a very healthy genetic mix for our puppies.
We have studied the health concerns of both of these breeds very extensively, and out of all of the various Bichon/Maltese types of dog breeds we feel that the very ancient breed of the Bichon Bolognese carries the fewest genetic health problems. And we have consistantly outbred our Cocker lines for a wider and more vaired gene pool, using "positive assortive breeding," and thus we produce very healthy Cockers also.
But aside from the genetics, our Bologco puppies come in all sorts of yummy looking shades of silver, cream and apricot--sometimes with two different paler colors on the same dog, as the ears can often be much darker than the color on their body.
And we do believe that some of the black puppies could turn silvery-gray eventually--or grow out a gray coat with black tips in some areas--as some of the puppies may have inherited the "graying" gene that is also found in Poodles and several other breeds. And our third litter really surprised us by having black masked sables, like Theo and Thia. And in one of our Summer litters of 2008 we were totally surprised to get some tan pointed puppies, as we had no idea that our little Bolognese male could throw such a recessive marking. All dogs carry something on all of their various color and markings genes, but almost everything that they carry is hidden in an all white dog like Guido.
Our Bichon Bolognese Male Named Guido
SunCatcher's Guido is a 13 pound purebred Bichon Bolognese, and you can see a whole page of pictures of our little "stud muffin" on our Bolognese page, which is where we also write extensively about the history of this rather rare little dog breed.
Our Bologco Litters
Our Bologco litters are bred from purebreds, and our litters are registered with the American Canine Hybrid Club (ACHC). Our purebreds are registered with various dog registries, including both the American Kennel Club (AKC) and America's Pet Registry (APRI), and there are links to these various registry websites to the right of this page. There are now 25 or more dog registries available to breeders, but the integrity of the pedigree still rests on the integrity of the individual breeder.
Our Bologcos come in all sorts of yummy colors and markings including silver, cream, champagne, and apricot in the lighter colors; and blacks with white tuxedo markings, black masked sables, solid merle and merle and tan--some with blue eyes--and black and tan and black and silver. And the puppy shown above is a little black boy with white tuxedo markings and white spats.
And the puppy shown above is a black masked sable boy named Theo who now lives with his almost identical sister and littermate named Thia with a family in Boca Raton, Florida.
And Piper is Theo and Thia's apricot colored littermate who now lives with her family in The Villages in Central Florida. And it looks as if Piper was a little Princess over Halloween this year.
Piper, Theo and Thia come from a very small liter of only three puppies, and our Bologco litters do tend to be small.
And we have now had our first merle Bologco puppies, and this is McKinley, a merle and tan girl with one blue eye and one brown eye, who lives with her family in Marietta, Georgia.
Bologcos are great family dogs and do very well with older children. And McKinley's family tells us that she is quite agile and a little "escape artist," and the grand-children love to play with her.
And this is McKinley at three months old, showing off her new sweater for the cold Atlanta area Winter weather.
In fact we designed this smaller mix with children in mind, as they are the perfect size for children to play with, unlike the toy dogs, which are often just too small and fragile for any type of real play except with other toy dogs. And this little mix has very sturdy bones, as well as a cheerful and playful attitude, and their beard gives them a very cute "Teddy Bear" appearance that both children and adults find very appealing.
And although we can't mention its name, due to copyright considerations, this mix is very similar in its basic look to a certain current doggie movie star--hint--whose name begins with a "B."
This black puppy has white tuxedo and spats markings that can be better seen in the picture just below.
This girl's name is Cookie, and she lives with her family on a horse farm near Archer, Florida.
And this picture shows that Bologcos are not just for children, but are a joy to own at any age! The darker puppy on the left is Cookie, who weighs about 11 pounds at 8 months old, and the merle and tan girl is McKinley, who is a bit larger at the same age, at 16 pounds.
And Cookie looks a lot like her sire, Guido, both in her body and head shape, although she is the opposite to him in color. This picture was taken when Cookie was four months old and she weighed a bit over six pounds. And we love her multi-colored ribbons in these pictures.
And Giovanna is one of our first "tan pointed" Bologcos, although her tan points are diluted to a silver color, with a few tan spots here and there. And we were very surprised when little "Rottie" marked puppies appeared in that litter, as we had no idea that our Guido could throw the very recessive tan points. And although they look similarly marked, Cookie is a solid black dog with white markings, while Giovanna is a tan pointed dog who also has white tuxedo and spats markings. Giovanna lives with her family in Marietta, Georgia, and goes on play dates with her merle and tan littermate named McKinley.
And as the above picture of Giovanna's littermate named Gracie Lou shows, these little "Rottie" marked girls will flash their silver points when they are walking or running. Gracie Lou lives with her family, which includes a 13 year old Bichon Frise, in St. Augustine, Florida.
And this is a picture of Gracie Lou at about six months old, getting her dog training certificate. And we do believe that this little mix is easier to train in every way than some of the other smaller pure breeds. And that ease in training probably comes from their Spaniel side, as the Spaniels are "pack" animals and very attuned to voice and hand signals--whereas the smaller vermine chasers, like the Bolognese and other small breeds, were originally lone little hunters, before they became companion animals.
And as the detail from a painting by Pietro Longhi (an Italian Rococo era painter, 1702-1785) shows, the little black dog with white tuxedo and spats markings has been popular for a long time. The painting is called "The Moor's Letter," painted in 1750, and is one of a series that Longhi painted depicting life in the middle and upper classes of Venice, Italy in the mid-1700's. This painting now resides at a museum located in a 17th centurey mansion along the Grand Canal in Venice called the
Ca' Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento. And we do love that little black plume of a tail!
And this rather light colored girl is called Dixie, and she is our first sable-merle girl, where the merle gene lightens up her darker shaded sable markings considerably, as merle is a dilution gene.
Dixie's coat just gleams in the sunlight, and we think that she has also inherited the "blue" or graying gene, which is the gene that lightens many Poodle coats over time. So we will not be surprised if Dixie gradually lightens to more of a cream color by the time that she is grown.
Merle mostly dilutes black hair and does not affect red sable hair very much. So Dixie's dark sable overlay has been considerably diluted--especially compared to Theo, the much darker black masked sable puppy shown above. And Dixie's black mask and dark tipped ears have also been considerably diluted, and she shows a bit of merle spotting on her muzzle. But because Dixie does not have blue eyes, and virtually no noticable merle spotting, she is actually a hidden or "cryptic" merle, as well as a sable--at least to an eye that is not trained to spot the subtle signs of merle markings in a dog. And so far Dixie has been our smallest Bologco puppy.
Dixie lives with her family with two young elementary school age girls in Jacksonville, Florida.
We also breed purebred Cocker Spaniels, and we specialize in the sable and merle markings, and in smaller Cockers--and we no longer dock our Cocker tails, as we feel that it is unnecessary in pet dogs. But for many years we raised rather large sight hound breeds, including the Afghan Hound, Saluki, and Borzoi.
To find out more about our Cocker Spaniels, please visit our Suwannee Cockers website.
Market Place
Our Market Place section to the right of this page includes many links to various websites selling all sorts of cute dog accessories, including collars, clothes, toys, and dog furniture, as we are sure that once you have a Bologco, then you will want only the best for your new puppy! So we have searched the web for the best links for dog accessories, so that they are right at your fingertips.
And in the picture above, Sophie--a cream Bologco girl--shows off her pink halter collar. Sophie started off looking more apricot in color, but like many of our Bologcos she lighted up in color as she got older.
Links to Other Dog Websites
We've listed here some other websites that contain useful information to dog owners, and we are always on the lookout for links to add to this list. We would also appreciate being notified of any dead links, as things are always changing on the internet.
Thank you for visiting our website!
Bologcos at Suwannee
Dog's Health and Training Articles
Dog Infomat
The Dog Owner's Guide
Dogs for the Blind
Dogs for the Deaf
Dogs With Jobs
Pets in Condos
The Senior Dog Project
Therapy Dogs
United States War Dogs
Working Dog Cyberzine
