I have acquired a 4 year old, black and white cocker bitch. The Kennel Club breeder registration certificate I was given states the colour as blue roan - is this possible? - she is definitely black and white.

Are the colours in distinct clear patches, or are the white areas very flecked with black? The dog in the picture on the Breed Standard is a blue roan.

Edit: Here are pictures of other colours.

My blue roan bitch is registered as black and white.  She WAS black and white when we first got her, my mum even thought we had swapped puppies when she saw her a few weeks later!

Perhaps in their experience, her breeders black and white pups turn out to be roan and they just assumed she would follow suit.

Does this make a difference?

I wondered whether this was the case. She's still a great dog just the same - I don't know why anyone would want to get rid of her

distinct clear patches. She definitely doesn't look like the blue roan picture

Thing is, Blue Roans are born Black & White, in nice clear patches.  The roaning develops slowly.  So it may depend on the experience of the breeder and the age at which they send in the registrations! :)
bye
Gwen

I've got blue roan and orange roan, but when they were born they were black and white and orange and white, if anybody would like to see pictures, just pm me!

all blue roans start out white with the black patches then they get darker and darker as they get older , hopefuly the link jean gave should clear things up :)
I will pm you with a link with lots of blue roans on you should see a large difference in how much roan there is in them

My thoughts too :-) If the breeder was not experienced or not expecting a black & white, then he/she may have registered all the pups as blue roan. Experienced breeders will look at the feet - roans always have completely black foot pads whereas black & whites will always have pads which are a mixture of black & pink, even when adult. It can be tricky differentiating between a very light blue roan & a black & white ticked, but the feet normally give it away. One of our first Cockers was registered as blue roan by the breeder but she was really a black & white ticked.

Jane thanks for that gem of information!  You learn something new everyday here.