The beauty of a solid colored poodle!

Solid color poodles come in a wide range of colors. There are the darkest blacks to the stunning ice whites. There are colors that hold throughout a dog's lifetime and colors that clear or lighten.  In blues, grays, silvers, browns, cafe-au-laits, apricots, and creams a solid colored coat may hold varying shades of the same color. This is frequently present in somewhat darker feathering of the ears and in tipping of the ruff.

Browns that hold their color throughout their life are rare. Most browns and their dilute shades will clear over time. Silver-beige and cafe-au-laits are easy to confuse. Silver-beige puppies are born brown and often have white between their toes or on the back of the foot. When you trim the face hair of a silver-beige puppy closely you can see the color change beginning. Silver-beige puppies usually clear to their adult color in the first 2 to 3 years of a dog's life. Cafe-au-laits differ from silver-beiges in that they are usually born a light brown or tan color.

The dilute colors of silver and blue dogs are usually born black. Silver dogs carry two genes for silver, while blue dogs carry one. You will find silvers in a wide range often referred to as grey, silver, or platinum. Blue dogs are not a "bad black," but a color of their own. A gorgeous blue is a stunning color, with blue-toned skin and a black coat when the dog is young. Over time the black changes, often going through a brown tipped phase until the coat becomes a blue color.

Reds and apricots may also change colors. Some are born lighter and then darken for several years, while some fade to apricot within a year or two. There are reds that hold the red mahogany color and some that fade. We have had several reds that surprised us and darkened during their first year of life.

Cremes may hold their color or change to a very bright white. Cremes may often turn white except for the creme color remaining on the ears.

There is no crystal ball to tell what color some dogs will mature to. I have had blacks they stayed black for all of their 16 years. I have had a dark red toy that faded to almost creme by the time she was 8 years old. I have had apricots that were born almost creme, darken to a beautiful apricot in the first year and then hold that color.

Based on our parents' colors and genetics we can usually determine what color our puppies will be.  We do know our blacks are true blacks and not blue or silver. We do genetic color testing on our poodle parents.

Poodles that are a dilute color which we have very few of, can be much harder to predict the final color. We don't understand all of the modifiers that impact color and cause a poodles coat color to evolve. Clearing may take as long as three years. Some people have even found that their poodle change colors over the dog's entire lifetime. That's part of the charm of a poodle - the color changing process sometimes surprises us despite our best guess!