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Your Pet, Our Passion.

Coton De Tulear

The Coton De Tulear is an attractive, intelligent little dog with a long white cottony coat. They are slightly longer than they are tall with dark pigmentation, giving them sparkling button nose and eyes and a very appealing expression.

Lifespan
14 – 16 years
Weight
4 – 6kg
Height
22 – 30cm
Colours
White, shadings of light grey or fawn/apricot may be present on the ears
Size
Small
UK Kennel Club Groups
Toy
The need-to-know
  • Dog suitable for non-experienced owners
  • Basic training required
  • Generally healthy breed
  • Enjoys active walks
  • Needs under an hour of walking a day
  • Small dog
  • Some drool
  • Requires grooming daily
  • Chatty and vocal dog
  • Barks and alerts to visitors/anything unusual
  • Generally friendly with other dogs
  • Gets along with other pets with training
  • May need additional supervision to live with children
  • Needs a small garden
  • Can happily live in the city
  • Can be left occasionally with training
Generally healthy breed

The Coton De Tulear breed can suffer from:
- Patellar luxation
- Von Willebrand's disease¹ which is where a dog produces insufficient or faulty clotting factors which can result in uncontrolled bleeding.
 
Priority Kennel Club health schemes and testing: 
None but there are several recommended schemes that the Kennel Club recommends which can be found here

¹M. L. Dalmolin, 'Haemostasis evaluation in dogs: von Willebrand factor, prothrombin and activated partial thromboplastin time', 2015, Masters Thesis- Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Faculty of Veterinary Sciences. Graduate Program in Veterinary Sciences.

Personality

While their origins may lie in pest control on board trading ships, the Coton has enjoyed centuries as a companion dog, thriving on human company. They are still a very capable watchdog, joyfully alerting their human family to anything happening around them, and are intelligent and will enjoy fun training as well as snuggling on laps.

Did You Know?

  • The Coton was so popular and prized by the noble families of Tulear that they passed a law prohibiting the common people from owning them!
  • A popular celebrity dog for some time, Coton De Tulear’s have been owned by the likes of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Debra Messing, Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda. 
  • They are quite a rare breed and have nearly become extinct at several points in history. 
  • Coton De Tulear’s are known as the Royal Dog of Madagascar. 
  • They’re thought to be ancestors of the Bichon Tenerife dog and are considered to be a Bichon type.