Phoebe Dashwood, the New Forest vet in my Puddleduck Farm series, has a Dalmatian called Roxie, who features quite a lot in Happy Ever After At Puddleduck Farm. She’s also in the previous book in the series, Living The Dream at Puddleduck Farm. So I thought it was high time for a few fun facts about Dalmatians.
1. They are born with a white coat without spots. The spots come through at about 10 to 15 days old.
2. Spots can be black or liver but never both. Black-spotted dogs have black noses and liver-spotted dogs have brown noses.
3. It is thought they were originally bred to be hunting dogs, guarding the borders of Dalmatia.
4. Dalmatians have always made excellent hunting dogs and carriage dogs because of their stamina and their affinity with horses.
5. In the days when there were horse-drawn fire engines, dalmatians were used to guard the horses who tended to get agitated at the scene of a fire.
One more bonus fact. I based my inspiration for Roxie on Darcie, who belongs to Liz, a friend of mine. Darcie loves to go apple scrumping in Autumn with her mum, Nancy. Because of this, Liz named the whole litter after apples. Darcey (slightly different spelling) is in fact the name of an old apple variety. Darcie the Dalmatian is also a big fan of doggie ice cream, which is based on a recipe that includes peanut butter and mashed banana.
I hope you like the photos. Isn’t she gorgeous!