My poodle is developing a spotted coat!

Question
I have a toy female poodle.  When I got her she was "apricot," but over the first 2 years faded to a cream color with only the slightest brown showing on her ears.

Then, about 6 months ago (about 2 years old), she started developing one apricot colored spot on her shoulder.  Since then more spots are emerging, and her ears are turning darker.

She's definitely pretty funny looking, but I'm okay with the change.  I am just wondering if there could be anything wrong with her that is causing the color change.

She is up on her vet checks and behaves totally healthy.  

Answer
Hello Colleen,
There can be a number of things that will cause a Poodle to get spots like that over their body.  First off, the Apricot color is caused by a fading gene so even though your puppy started out dark, she will gradually "soften" as she ages.  Sometimes they will develop spots as they age.  These spots can be caused by an injury to the skin, medications, reactions to the dye in foods, flea treatments (the ones you apply between their shoulders), biting and scratching at fleas/allergies to flea bites, hot spots and a number of other things.
What happens is that the skin is somehow disturbed and the coat starts to grow in as puppy hair, or it grows in the color it did when the dog was a newborn.  The spots will gradually lighten, but will tend to be darker than the rest of the coat until they "catch up" to the normal coat color. (the coat will lighten more slowly as the dog ages)

Apricot, Cream, Silver and sometimes Brown dogs tend to have darker ears, top knots and tails for some reason.  Sometimes they even get a darker stripe down their backs.
I hope this helps you some.  If you have other questions, please feel free to ask.

Thanks for using AllExperts.com,
Kim