Poodle Puppies

The retriever under the haircut

The Poodle reads as an ornament and started as a tool. The breed was developed as a water retriever, sent into cold lakes and rivers to bring back shot waterfowl, and the German name Pudel comes from a verb meaning to splash. France took the breed up so thoroughly that most of the world now thinks of the Poodle as French, and it is the national dog there — but the job came first, and the job is still visible in the dog.

Look at one with that in mind and it stops being decorative. A Poodle is squarely built and deep through the chest, long in the leg, with a dense, weather-resistant coat and webbing between the toes. It swims the way something designed to swim swims. The American Kennel Club has admitted Standard Poodles to retriever hunting tests since 1998, and a fair number of them are out there doing the work their great-grandparents did.

The breed also spent a couple of centuries as Europe’s favourite performing dog. Poodles worked in French circuses and travelling shows, holding routines in their heads that most breeds could not, and that reputation for cleverness is the other half of what the Poodle is known for. Both halves are true at once. This is an athlete that will also learn forty things by name.

What the clip was actually for

The show trim looks eccentric until you know what it is for. A retriever working in cold water needs its chest, hips and joints covered and the rest of its coat out of the way, so the working trim left hair over the parts that mattered and cleared the legs and hindquarters for swimming. Everything you see in the ring — the Continental, the English Saddle, the pompoms, the bracelets — is a stylized descendant of that.

Nobody is going to make you use it. Most pet Poodles wear a sporting clip, sometimes called a kennel clip, which is short and even all over with a slightly fuller head. The lamb clip leaves more length on the body and legs. The teddy bear trim rounds the face and is the one most people ask for by pointing at a photograph. All of them are correct, and your groomer will have opinions worth listening to.

Size, coat and colour

The Poodle is one breed in several sizes, and the divisions are formal ones. A Standard stands over fifteen inches at the shoulder and usually weighs somewhere between forty-five and seventy pounds. A Miniature falls between roughly ten and fifteen inches, a Toy comes in at ten inches and under, and the Moyen sits between the Miniature and the Standard and is recognized as its own division in Europe rather than here. Below the shoulder measurement they are the same dog with the same brain and the same coat. If you are weighing up the sizes, the Miniature and the Toy have pages of their own.

The coat is a single curly one with no undercoat, and it drops very little of itself, which is why you rarely find Poodle hair on a dark jumper. What it asks for in return is a proper routine, and that applies to a four-pound Toy exactly as much as to a sixty-pound Standard.

Colour is one of the quiet pleasures of the breed. The solids run black, white, blue, silver, grey, brown, café-au-lait, apricot, cream and red, and several of them move over the first two years — a black puppy can clear to a smoky silver, a red can soften toward apricot. Beyond the solids there are parti-colours, phantoms and sables, which are not shown in the AKC ring but are common and much admired in pet homes.

The brain, and what to give it

Poodles are consistently ranked among the most trainable dogs in the world, and a week of living with one makes it obvious. A Poodle learns the household routine, works out which sounds mean what, and starts anticipating you. It will learn its toys by name if you teach them. It will learn a chain of three actions and then offer you the whole chain when you ask for the first one.

That intelligence wants somewhere to go, and this is the single most useful thing to know about the breed. A Poodle with a job is calm, funny and easy company. So give it one: a new trick every week, a puzzle feeder at breakfast, a scent game with a treat hidden in one of three boxes, a retrieve up a slope, a name-that-toy session on the rug.

The training itself is straightforward as long as you keep it kind. Poodles are sensitive dogs that read tone closely and work hard for someone they like, so keep sessions short, upbeat and varied and finish while the dog still wants more. Recall, a settle on a mat and loose-leash walking are the three to invest in early, and a Standard should learn its leash manners while you can still out-muscle it.

Organized dog sport suits this breed better than almost any other. Obedience, rally, agility, dock diving, tracking, scent work and retriever tests are all full of Poodles, and a weekly class is the easiest way to build the mental work into the week.

Grooming as a routine

Set the expectation properly at the start and the coat is no trouble at all. Plan on brushing three or four times a week, in sections, working right down to the skin rather than skating across the top, then following with a comb to find whatever the brush missed. Ten or fifteen minutes at a time, in front of the television, keeps the coat smooth.

Then a professional groom every six to eight weeks, depending on the clip you have chosen and how fast the coat is coming in. Book the standing appointment when you get the puppy, because groomers fill up.

The ears drop, so give them a look and a wipe every week, particularly after swimming — and there will be swimming. Nails every few weeks. Teeth as routine. Start handling paws, ears, muzzle and tail in the first week home, so that every part of the process is ordinary to the dog long before the first appointment.

What a day with a Poodle looks like

Mornings are enthusiastic. A Standard wants a real walk, a run in a secure space or a swim. A Miniature or a Toy wants a smaller version of the same thing, and all three want it with you rather than near you.

The middle of the day is quieter than people expect. A Poodle that has had its exercise and something to think about is a settled house dog, usually lying where it can keep an eye on the door and on you at the same time.

Afternoons belong to the brain. This is the part of the day that makes the difference, and it costs five minutes: a new trick, a puzzle, a search game, a bit of homework for the class you signed up to.

Evenings, Poodles are affectionate and slightly ridiculous. A lot of them lean. A lot of them try to sit on a lap that stopped being big enough a year ago. Most of them keep a favourite toy within reach in case anybody feels like starting something. Summers in Florida and Tennessee push the walks out to the ends of the day, and there is usually water involved somewhere.

Come and meet the Poodle puppies

Photographs of Poodles are almost always photographs of grooming. What you notice standing next to one is the athleticism, the length of leg and the attention — a Poodle puppy watches your face and waits to see what the two of you are going to do next.

Our Poodle puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can talk you through the sizes and tell you what a particular puppy’s parents were like. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit with a puppy for as long as you like before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.