# Apricot or Cream??



## outwest

I have always called Bonnie a cream, but now I am wondering if she is actually an apricot? I researched her pedigree for fun and she has one entire European line that was apricot. Instead of getting lighter, her coloring seems to be getting richer. I have never heard of a poodle getting DARKER not lighter, is that possible? I have loads of pics of her in the 52 weeks area, but this is a recent one which shows her color pretty well. Some of the pics posted of her the lighting is too bright and she looks lighter than she actually is. 

The reason I am wondering about apricot is because other people creams at almost 6 months are getting pretty white looking and Bonnie is getting DARKER! Her color is super pretty to me. She was called a dark cream as a little puppy. 

What do you think? So I need to wait for coat change to know for sure? 

Are there pics of apricot spoos around here somewhere??
Here she is at 24 weeks:


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## outwest

Here's an old one that shows her coloring fairly accurately


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## Olie

She's a light apricot to me - she is lightening which a lot do.


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## outwest

Actually, she seems to be getting a milkier orangy color, not lighter? Is that possible? Thanks for looking. 

I will search around the forum for some true apricots.


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## Olie

Here is Olie - a true apricot who has not faded - which is rare from what I have seen. He is a BYB dog, has really light liver points. Sweetest boy though. They can also darken, yes.


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## FunkyPuppy

Wow! I've never actually seen an Apricot, they are pretty!!!


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## Geneva77

Whatever she is, she is very beautiful!


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## farleysd

In my opinion she is an apricot.

Did you see her when she was eight weeks old or younger? 

If so what color was she? 

Did she have a strange, odd, silverish tone to her coat?

The reason I am asking,,, is that... I have found with, at least in my line, often times you will find an odd silverish tone puppy that we often refer to as a Weimaraner puppy, cause of this odd tone. This puppy is the one in the litter that often darkens with age. 

A few examples:

1. Dona was born a medium apricot with this tone and turned deep red.
2. Ivy was born extremely light cream/white with the tone and turned medium apricot.
3. Shiloh was also born light cream and turned deep apricot, some said light red, but he is a deep apricot.

Apricots CAN fade, stay the same, but they can and often darken as well.
Some may actually lighten and then turn dark again. Chelsea was born deep red, lighten to a mauve and then darken back to a deep red, as did Cello.

Terry
Farleys D Standard
"One must first build a house before they can paint it!"


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## outwest

YES YES Farley, she did have an odd grayish tone to her hair. My husband laughed when I brought her home asking what color was that, anyway? I chose her for her personality and her beautiful (to me) eyes that have a marmalade color hair surrounding them. It sounds like it remains to be seen what color she will actually end up. In the mean time, I am enjoying the show! LOL. 

Olie, your apricot is beautiful! Even though you say it was a BYB breeder, he has a wonderful head and is a very good looking dog. His apricot is nice and even all over including his ears. Bonnie's ears are a lot darker than her body, but her body is lighter than your pup. I thought apricots always had liver points and Bonnie has black points, so I assumed she was cream. Are you saying some apricots have black points like my puppy? 

She was the darkest of three 'creams' in her litter. One of them was almost white (see the pic) and the other a light cream. The breeder called her paper bag color and to me she had an odd grayish cast, yes, she did. This was the first breeding of her sire and dam (two completely disparate lines of poodles). The breeder kept commenting about the extraordinary color variations she had gotten with this breeding. There were 4 puppies not spoken for when I chose Bonnie. The white one, all the browns and a couple black were gone already. Bonnie was an odd color that matched our tile floor when I brought her home. Maybe that was why she wasn't yet chosen? I had hesitated with her because of the odd cast to her fur, but her eyes won me over. I remember my husband asking what color that was anyway?! 

Here is a pic of her as a 6 week old (left rear):









Here she is at 12 weeks. I was initially draw to her because of the marmalade color of the hair around her black eyes:









Her shaved face is pretty white. It creams up after a week or so:









I guess I will have to wait and see what she ends up. I am not sure she will be as dark a color as Olie. Right now her ears are definitely darkening rather than lightening and her body is orangey/creaming up a lot!


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## Olie

Thanks Outwest. 

American Kennel Club - Poodle This link breaks down the colors with listed standard and faults.

Apricots are preferred to have black points like your dog. Who is very pretty.


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## lavillerose

If she's darkening from where she is (and was as a young puppy), I would call it a light apricot.

Something to consider, Euro kennel clubs (such as FCI) are quite a bit more stringent about colors being the correct shade and solid throughout, meaning they tend to fault coloring that has a considerable amount of variation more than AKC does. So, say a silver dog has dark ears but the legs are really light, FCI will fault that in an adult dog (above 2 years once the color is considered fully cleared), as they prefer much less variation. And from what I've seen, euro bred apricots are much darker than you typically see in the US, you wouldn't mistake them for creams like we do here, they're much closer to resembling the actual peachy-orange color of a real apricot). So perhaps that's why your puppy is darkening up, if she has a strong European bloodline.

FCI also didn't used to allow colors like Cafe or Silver-beige either, they were very strict about only the basic colors with little variation, though that may be changing as it is in the US.


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## farleysd

I have had a few apricots born light apricot and maintained a light apricot color. Most of the ones that I have born medium orange/apricot remain that color. Very few are ever mistaken as a cream. 

I have a present boy that I lovely refer to as Moose, he is a pale apricot, much like my original boy Celtic. He is a light apricot and will remain light apricot. But for the most part the breeders I know have a good apricot color.

Terry
Farleys D Standard
"One must first build a house before they paint it!"


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## outwest

PS What hits me with looking at Olie's picture is the shimmery orangey cream nature of his coat. Bonnie has that same shimmery quality. Maybe she really is a light apricot after all. ...or maybe not. LOL

I will call her a dark cream/light apricot. Whatever it is, I like it. She isn't dark orangey, so she isn't a full apricot obviously. The European line (s) could be accounting for the slight color difference with purely American poodles, I guess. 

She has yet to go through color change and clearing, so her true color remains to be seen. 

Thank you for all the comments. I learned a lot!


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## Countryboy

Whatever colour u decide on, I think it's a really pretty dog. 

Love the colours and the cut!


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## Keithsomething

I definitely think shes an apricot! If you look at Heaven you can see that the only thing that looks remotely apricot are her ears, the rest of her body is this...almost off white color

I've heard that Heaven may darken to a nice even light apricot but I've heard that its more likely that she'll fade into an almost dingy white...either way I'm sure I'll love it!

I think Bonnie looks fantastic and I can't wait to see what her colour develops into!!


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## outwest

HEY! Look what I found! I forgot I had these. This is Bonnie as a newborn- she is the darkest one straight down in the bunch of babies and the one looking at the camera a slightly older baby. She is certainly darker than her cream siblings, isn't she:


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## Olie

Are you convinced yet?


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## Keithsomething

Bonnie was adorable!! I don't think there is ANYTHING more cute than those whiteish/creamish "eyebrows" on apricots and cream poodles!!! I love them


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## FunkyPuppy

Goodness! How could ANYONE think a baby that color was a cream?? She was adorable, and still is. Is she large for a 6 month female? She seems like... full grown size.


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## CharismaticMillie

Such a rainbow of puppy colors! What colors were dam and sire?


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## ArreauStandardPoodle

She sure looks apricot to me. Pretty girl too!!!


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## outwest

Both the dam and the sire were pitch BLACK. The breeder was very surprised at the colors she got from this breeding and she talked to me about it. She had not had any chocolates for years. 

The father's sire (American line) was a white/cream out of a brown and black. The sire's dam was an all solid black line (no other colors at all). His siblings were black and light cream turning white. 

The dam's (European and Canadian line) sire and dam were both black, but when researching the colors on line on the poodle pedigree site (which has colors) the dams black father came from an all European apricot line for generations with only one black in it way back. The dams mothers line was pure black with a silver thrown in about 6 generations before. 

I think Bonnie is a throw back. LOL


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## FunkyPuppy

Wow! I love how colors can seem so structured and predictable, then rainbow litters are born.


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## outwest

Funky puppy, Bonnie is not large, but seems about average or a smaller average for a not quite 6 month old puppy. She is over 19 inches now, perhaps 20 inches, but I don't think quite yet. 

Just wait- they seem to grow in front of your eyes! Your puppy is just adorable, by the way. I can't wait to see her shaped into a panda or a camel or something with your grooming. LOL


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## spoospirit

She is a pretty girl. I would say a light apricot.

This is the apricot I had until about a month ago. She is a red apricot and lightened some but not a lot.

Taffy the day I brought her home.










Taffy in April of this year before I clipped off her CC










Taffy about a month ago.


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## WestCoastSpoo

WOW! Taffy is BEAUTIFUL! I just LOVE her color...both as a pup and how it lightened when she was older. I've always thought I wanted a black, but now I'm not so sure!! Poodles come in so many gorgeous colors - I think I need one of each :biggrin:


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## Olie

Aw Taffy! Hope she is doing well in her new home. She was a pretty pup too.


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## outwest

Taffy sure is a gorgeous girl and a lovely color!! I know it broke your heart to find her a new home. I wish you all the best finding another foundation dog. 

Bonnie was not quite that dark as a little puppy, but the tone of her coat is the same. She had an odd grayish cast when I got her, which seems to be gone or going right now and is being replaced with this creamy orangey cast. Bonnie's color seems to be enriching (what is the word I am looking for anyway) rather than lightening up. She is not getting really dark, but turning creamy light orangey rather than the paper bag darker cream she initially was. 

I will commence calling her a "light apricot" ......for the moment......or...maybe a very dark cream.... LOL


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## spoospirit

_I still get teary eyed a bit when I look at photos of Taffy. She is the most gorgeous color of apricot I have ever seen and I don't think you see it very often. She shimmered like spun gold! The red was really red and the lighter part was yellow gold. I wish I could breed whole litters with her color but with better health and conformation of course. 

Taffy is thriving in her new home. She has seven toy poodles to play with and her favorite toy is a stuffed cow...LOL How appropriate having come from Vermont. I am still awaiting pics from the new owner. 

WestCoastSpoo.....Having poodles that are bad black, blue, silver, light apricot, and Taffy's dark apricot, I have to say that it is the apricots who get noticed the most and get the most attention when we are out and about. The black's, blue's and silver's look quite elegant but apparently not as approachable for some reason.

My foundation bitch now is our own bred from Grace's litter....Song. She scored very high on the evaluation in all departments. She is a white but not an ice white. We have her down as white from the brown side rather than the black. There really could be an argument as to whether or not she is of the lightest cream possible. She has a slight cream in her ears, so she is not apricot in my opinion. We do know that she will clear to all white as she matures. She will be a yellow white. 

I believe that the puppy we are talking about in this thread will probably clear much to a white color as well since she is so light already. But the ears definitely look like those of an apricot to me with the deeper orangey/red color. 









_


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## outwest

Oh, I hadn't made the connection between Song/Taffy and you. Song really is a pretty, pretty baby! Good luck with her and I will keep my fingers crossed that she tests wonderfully, too.


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## CharismaticMillie

spoospirit said:


> _
> She has a slight cream in her ears, so she is not apricot in my opinion. We do know that she will clear to all white as she matures. She will be a yellow white.
> 
> _


Sidenote - how do you differentiate a "yellow" white from a "black" white? I wonder what Tiger is? Tiger as a pup had a slight tinge if cream in his ears but his breeder said he is going to end up pretty darn ice white like his grandma, mom and sister. His handler seems to think that he will be very, very white. He has purpleish skin that tans quickly to black.


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## Rowan

Brandy (in my Sig below) was an apricot miniature. He was definitely orange-ish.


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