Long story will try to make it as short as humanly possible.

I began researching the Coton de Tulear in 1997 – continuing until 1999. My husband and I retired from our careers, and it was my mission to find a smaller breed dog other than the Labrador that I grew up with and had throughout my adult life.  Labs have short life spans and riddled with cancers and other health issues.  I sought a healthy breed, intelligent, and one that did not shed, with hair instead of fur.

We attended dog shows all over the USA, we were living in an RV full time, and that was a massive asset for my mission, we had the time to invest as we were building a home in Arizona.

From dog shows to visiting with breeders, we found that the breed failed to compare from breeder to breeder. Some were very petite as adults as little as five pounds, others upward of 20 pounds.  It was an eye-opener.  Some were pure white, other solid black, solid brown coats, as well as solid tan/brown almost a dapple color with black spots — that is called ticking.  I was shocked.  

After those two years, it was evident that we would not be obtaining a puppy from an American breeder,  no matter their knowledge as the quality was not there, we saw that in person over and over again.

We imported two girls from Europe in 1999 and have never looked back or changed our viewpoint.  Now you will find about one-third of the Cotons on the market are solid black and other colors.

We do health testing, our girls and male retire at five years of age. We recommend filtering water and not overwhelming the animal with inoculations from uncaring veterinarians.  Steering clear of Frontline that cause cancers, seizures, and kidney failures. 

We feed an all-natural holistic dry dog food, a puppy formula for the babies, and adult food from the same company.  Provide a pharmaceutical grade vitamin to the puppies and adults daily.  Most importantly, no human food.  Feeding chicken and other meat prepared cooked or raw is a health hazard for dogs.  A specialist told us that when we had an necropsy done on our last Labrador, he said human food kills dogs, we learned our lesson.

Our male and female Coton’s are NOT related, they have FCI registration and pedigreed. We dual register with the ARBA in the USA as the ARBA is the only kennel club that follows the FCI standard and description of the breed.

Weekly we hear from people that go to another breeder and buy a mixed designer breed, learning when they take their puppy to a vet or groomer that they do not have a full-blooded Coton de Tulear after spending thousands of dollars. Of course, they have fallen in love with the puppy.

I don’t understand to this day why the kennel clubs allow this to develop to such an extreme.  It has been going on for many, many years.  I guess the flow of funds from the registrations is more critical than what they represent as a standard for any breed for that matter.