hair quality/need to comb - by colour?

[Karoube]

I'm looking to buy a miniature poodle puppy in the next year. I found 2 good breeder, one doing silvers, the other one doing red...

I allready own a cream toy poodle. I dont know if it's because Neve came from a back yard breeder or it is because of her colour,  but her hair is very bad quality. It looks more like a bichon hair, not very curled. It matted very easily so we need to comb very often, if you pass some days, she's full of mat! I had a mini poodle, black one. (she died recently at 12 yo) Luna had very good hair quality. I was combing at least twice a week, but she didnt need so. I could have comb only once in 2 weeks, I have never find any mat of fur, except around the long fluffy ears. She came from a good breeder. I know someone who own 2 standart poodles, one black and one white, from good breeder and and she never comb beetween the grooming sessions and they never have a mat! (she grooms each 2 months)

So now here's the question: many people I know who show poodles told me that hair quality depends of the colour! Black poodle would be easyer to care for, less combing, better hair quality. White would be the worst.

but if that is true (I would like to know your idea on that one!) what about the other colours in beetween? what about silver? or red? or brown?

so what is the reason for the poodle hair quality or lack of hair quality in your idea? colours? breeding ligns? food? a little of everything?

sorry for my English, I do my best.. but I use that second langage only over the web! so I hope I'm easy to understand.

Nancy

[MotherofMercies]

From what I read there are two types of hair on poodles, someone please correct me if I am wrong. A sort of wavey type of hair and a curley type. And I think one is more common than the other.

My black toy poodle has really curley hair and it grows so fast! But the thing is, it doesnt mat! I bath him once a week followed by a brush (if that) and get him groomed maybe once a month, my boy is from a sort of "back yard breeder". 

[zefi]

Hi Nancy and welcome. Where are you from? Your English is very good!

Ok... I was always told that blacks had the best coats... but I've seen so many blacks with soft coats that I dont think its true. From my own personal experience:

I've seen whites with horrible soft cotton coats.
I've seen whites with the most glorious, thick, coarse textured coats.
I've seen creams (most of them) with the thickest coat that you could lose a comb in.
I've seen blacks with lovely thick dense coats.
I've seen blacks with very soft thin coats.

MOST black coats tend to be curlier than whites.
Most browns I've seen tend to have thick and curly coats.
Most silvers I've seen have soft coats. They take much longer to mature and get an adult coat too.
Most apricots I've seen have soft but dense coats.
I havent seen enough reds but most of the ones I've seen have soft, fine coats.

I think it depends on the dog and the line... You can get good coats and bad coats in the same litter, but if you have a line of dogs with good coats you'll tend to have more of the good coats.

As for matting... it depends on the dog too. Pagan matted a lot. Montana went through phases where she mats a lot and then when she doesnt. I experiement with products, what works really well for a while will often stop working and I have to start over. With Pagan I kept her in oil (rich conditioning treatments) for her entire show career. I started that with Montana but found it was probably making things worse. I took her out of oil and found that she did best with a small amount of conditioner in the coat, rinsed out or simply sprayed onto her as I brushed.

Caring for pet coats is so much easier than show coats, but if you keep your dog in any length of coat at all it will need to be brushed at least once a week, probably twice if the coat is longer.