I’ve offered quite a lot of information and videos of poodles who have been trained to service jobs – search and rescue, guide dogs, assistant dogs, etc. There is another class of working poodles (in addition to sheep herding and such, which they also do very well). It is the field and/or hunting dog.

Poodles were originally bred as hunters and retrievers, and their water skills led to a whole different poodle-like breed, the Portuguese Water Dog – of which the Obama family’s “Bo” is currently most famous. Their tendency to tolerate gunshots near them without fear also led to them being among the best of war dogs.

The best site I’ve seen out there on the web for all sorts of information about these sporting poodles – and yes, sports like these are indeed work – is the Working Field Poodle section of the Versatility In Poodles site. They offer excellent information about finding the right trainer, what a good training regime should look like, what things must be covered during that training, and it offers great lists of skills to be earned from the beginning through intermediate and advanced training.

But perhaps more important overall is the good information on choosing just the right poodle puppy for this sort of activity. The first criteria is to choose a driven retriever. Which my beautiful black Kenya proved herself a star. This is a pup who’s always got a ball or stick or toy in his or her mouth, and is constantly trying to get you to throw it. Not only do they chase, they also bring it right back so you can throw again. Kenya would retrieve anything, but her best was a snowball I’d throw into a snowbank. Now, THAT is a committed retriever!

Second on the list of inborn traits you’ll want to look for is a love of water. Not just being unafraid of a bath, but ready, willing and able to jump right into water and swim. If the pup hasn’t yet been exposed to water enough to swim in, a pup that plays in their water dish, chases water from a hose or really enjoys a bath is a bood bet.

You’ll want a pup that likes people and isn’t aggressive to other dogs. You want one that doesn’t act skittish or try to hide at any sudden noise. A pup that will confidently walk with you over unfamiliar terrain is good too, try flattened cardboard boxes or creek bridges.

Poodles are such intelligent dogs that it’s not that difficult to evaluate traits early, even at 6 or 7 weeks of age. Some are better suited to certain tasks than others, though almost any well-bred poodle can be trained to do things other dogs only dream about. Go on over to the Versatility in Poodles website and check out some of their good information about all sorts of poodle jobs!

Looks to me like Angelina is going to be a valuable ‘first responder’ in her working life, and perhaps an international star as well!

In this video we get a feel for the Slovakian social life that the poodles-in-training must learn to become accustomed to. This includes transportation, which in northern Europe includes trains a lot more than private cars or trucks. Would that this country had such widespread public transportation systems!

Here’s a great story about an “Educational Dog” in Oregon, who has been a ’school dog’ since he was just a pup. Our childrens’ classrooms have hosted mice, ferrets, hamsters, guinea pigs, snakes and ant farms through their primary grades, so what’s wrong with a class poodle?

Should dogs be banned from schools? How about hamsters?

“He was four months old when he started school,” said Witt, who was teaching fifth grade at the time. “I got him specifically as a classroom dog.”

A year later, when Witt began teaching third grade, Rosebud followed.

Students were thrilled to have a dog in class. The animal even serves as an incentive for some students.

“He makes it easier to come to school,” said 8-year-old Madison Canova.

What do you think?

Previous Posts About Working Poodles:

Working Poodles: What They’re Best At
“Go Fetch Gramps, Timmy’s In The Well!”
Napoleon’s Dogs: Literary License or Dread History?
Those Cool Alaskan Sled Poodles
What Can a Trained Poodle Do?”
Service Poodle in Action!

I found this video by sanprins over at YouTube. It shows service poodle Gautzy Wopper at work, helping with some basic household tasks. I’ll be featuring some further videos of service dogs at work and play in this series, so please enjoy!

Back when we’d first adopted our beloved Beau the black standard from the local animal shelter [A Poodle and His Clown] we were working as directors of a state funded after school program for at-risk and adjudicated young teenagers (12-14) at a local Jr. High school.

Beau was just 6 months old when we got him. He was about 9 months old when a volunteer from the local police force (good outreach) volunteered his time to help us with the kids. He turned out to be a great asset, kept most of the adjudicated kids out of trouble from then on by being their friend and mentor. One afternoon he brought a couple of beautiful German Shepherds – the ‘real’ shepherds that surprise people. Smaller than expected, low-slung in the rear. Seems he’d been promoted to K9 training and these were his babies. He’d trained dogs when in the military, our town was just starting a K9 program. His dogs were the same age as Beau, who as it happened had been to the vet that day so ended up at the school with us for the program that day.

We’d told our young policeman about Beau, of course, and he’d mouthed some platitude he’d learned in the Army about big poodles being excellent service/K9 dogs, but he’d never actually seen or met one. The moment he saw Beau – who was quite hairy at the time and already bigger than either of those shepherds – it was love at first sight. All that he’d heard about giant poodles suddenly clicked in his mind, and within 15 minutes he had Beau joining his pups in the “Obedience Show-Off Game.” He offered to include Beau in his training course for free, just wanted to work with him.

We politely declined, not really all that interested in having a K9 trained drug or attack dog around the house. But we were flattered, and our policeman friend went on to become a trainer for a service dog outfit (for disabled folks and search and rescue dogs in the civilian sector, said he wasn’t cut out to be a policeman anyway), finally did get to work with poodles, goldens, border collies and labs as well as shepherds. His dream job!

The thing that impressed us that day watching Beau play with those two extremely well-trained pups was how he took his cues from them on what the commands were and what they meant, and figured out for himself how to rig the system – with that impish poodle talent for doing something funny just for laughs, while at the same time beating those shepherds at their own game. Did I mention that poodles have big egos?

See, we aren’t good trainers. In fact, we generally don’t spend any time training our dogs. They’re expected to figure out what’s what using their own brains, and so far they always have. The poodles of course figure it out quickly (took Big Ras Bob exactly 2 hours to figure out exactly what we needed in a dog after walking into our home). They are that smart, and they do genuinely want to please. Plus, living with clowns is great fun for them – we always laugh at their jokes.

So yesterday I was surfing around for details and pretty pictures of standard poodles in training as service dogs. I happened upon a very cool blog from Dogviews, Roxi: Service Dog in Training. One recent post on that blog talks about the dog training methods of Cesar Milan – that guy with the popular “Dog Whisperer” television show on the National Geographic channel. Milan boasts that he “rehabilitates dogs, trains people.” Yet as Hansen points out in her blog post, he’s come in for a lot of criticism from professional dog trainers as well as some humane society spokespersons.

I’ve watched Milan’s show, and his methods are not materially different from those our policeman trainer used with his pups. He emphasizes body language and mind-dominance, which (along with generally reasoning with a dog smart enough to want to understand) is pretty much the ‘natural’ way of things for all the dogs we’ve ever owned and NOT formally trained. Dogs are smart, they want to love and be loved, and they want to have a real place in their family’s life.

Of course I’m quite sure there are dogs that don’t fit this profile, but I just don’t know them personally. To be our dog, you’ve gotta find a way to fit in, and our dogs have all managed that. The poodles have taken more interest in doing an actual job than the mutts have, but the mutts have their jobs as well – like letting us know when someone’s on the property and keeping deer out of the yard. They bark at bears too, but are smart enough not to try and chase ‘em away. At any rate, all dogs and dog breeds have their particular talents for which they were bred (or in the case of mutts, can pick and choose to display). And all individual dogs have their personalities and issues, just as people do.

It seems to me that to be a good trainer, you’ve also got to be a good “Dog Person” – able to connect and communicate with a dog on a real level the dog understands and respects. But then, it seems to me that Dog People need that skill all around, whether or not they actually do any serious dog training. A truly smart dog is going to do what his or her family requires and expects, will readily respond to body language, voiced disapproval and praise, and will organize for themselves how that translates by way of behaviors in home and out in public.

Do check out some of the links below to information about service dog training programs, and what they require of their dogs. One company – apparently quite successful – even teaches the dogs to read! And yes, they prize those standard poodles on that particular skill! I’ll be writing more about this training later, so stay tuned!

Links:

Assistance Dogs International

Assistance Dog Institute

American Poodles at Work

Canine Partners forLife

CPL TeamTraining: Marie and Showbo

Snowflake Foundation

National Service Dogs (Canada)

In my post 12 Nifty Things About Poodles, I mentioned those standard poodles who ran the Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska for John Suter from 1988 through 1991. He’d begun mushing poodles in the mid-1970s, competing in the 1976 Chungiak Sled Dog Race. In 1992 Suter’s daughter Esther tackled the 154-mile race with her poodles, and other mushers are adding poodles to their teams.

For a grueling race in ice and snow, the dogs need boots even if they’re regular Alaskan Huskies or Husky-Hound crossbreeds. Mushers can be downright snobby about their sled dogs, as is clear from Mark Hamilton’s opinion in the newsletter of the Inuit Sled Dog International, Dog Sled Racing vs. Sled Dog Racing.

Still, as reported by Angus of Alaska in the It’s an alaskan dog’s life, poodles can not only be great sled dogs, they’re also really good for impressing the ladies for their owners down at Koot’s in Anchorage, so they’re definitely double-duty dogs!

As january goes on and on and on, and February’s foreshortened period of white stuff still looming, thinking about poodles who love the snow is good. If ever I take up skiing I’m going to use my poods to get me to the top of the run so I don’t have to pay for a lift ticket!

Check out this article on how to keep those poodles warm during winter.

Links:

Poodle Sled Dog History [John Suter's site]

Poodle History: Draft/sled dogs

How to Train a Winning Dog Sled Racing Team

It’s an alaskan dog’s life

CrazyUnclePaul: The Iditarod Dog Sled Race

Wikipedia: Sled Dog

King of Dogs!

In deference to my new Russian friends, I’ll start off by mentioning that there is some disagreement about where, exactly, the poodle breed originated. Some say northern Germany, others insist they started in Russia or on the steppes of central Asia. I will say that about 90% the people I’ve ever known in the circus/performing world who work with poodles are Russian, and that they’re quite passionate about the intelligence, loyalty and talents of their dogs. Given the intriguing hints that it was Russians who suffered most of the battle scars from Napoleon’s War Dogs, if poodles weren’t originally a Russian breed those Russians were wise enough to appreciate quality when they met it!

That said, there is no disagreement about the specific job poodles were developed to do – they were water retrievers, and this job explains some things about poodles that people may not have known…

1. Poodles first became famous for their performing abilities in Europe with the Commedia del Arte’s Gypsies and Jongleurs in the Middle Ages, moving quite naturally into circus and Vaudeville over the centuries. It was Gypsies (the Rom) who made most creative use of manicuring their poodles’ coats into fanciful and outlandish hair styles to delight audiences, often mimicking the outrageous wig stylings of the pampered aristocracy. They dressed their poodles in costumes to match, too!

2. Poodle hair is thick and tightly curled (on adult dogs), effectively repelling water if it is not allowed to become corded into floor-length dreadlocks. Because their hair grows continually, hunters who relied on poodles to retrieve their prize learned to trim and brush their dogs’ coats to prevent drowning. The poodle breed is related to both Irish and Portugese water dogs, and is popular as a “Yacht Dog” among the wealthy.

3. Those odd poodle haircuts were designed originally for utility in the job of water retrieving. By leaving the coat long over the hips, chest and head, internal organs were protected from the effects of very cold water and helped to buoy the dog with trapped air. Shaving the haunches and feet allowed the poodles to more efficiently swim. By leaving “pom-poms” on the ankles protected these important joints from the effects of cold as well.

4. Poodles can only be shown in English Saddle, Lion or Continental clips unless they are being shown in stud classes. Most pet poodles are trimmed for ease of maintenance, usually a single length all over, slightly shorter on the neck, longer on head and ears, face and feet shaved. Despite the “non-sporting” classification, the acceptable show clips are specific to the sporting function poodles were bred to perform.

5. Poodles do not shed like other dogs do, thus are a good choice for people with allergies to dog hair or who just don’t like to clean up after a shedding dog.

6. While some breeders do offer parti-colored poodles, these are not recognized by show breeders or allowed to compete in kennel club shows. Acceptable poodle colors are black, white, apricot, silver, chocolate or cream.

7. An artist’s favorite subject for hundreds of years, poodles appear in more works of art than any other dog breed.

8. All sizes of poodle are recognized as being a single breed. The standard is the oldest of the three varieties (standard, miniature and toy), which is why it’s called “standard!” In France and elsewhere, very large standard poodles (in the 90-120 pound range) are called “Imperial Poodles.” Imperial is not recognized as a separate variety by the kennel clubs.

9. Poodles are considered among the three breeds of highest intelligence among all dogs. While there is some disagreement about which breed is the smartest, poodles get a lot of votes! Ranking #2 in the top 10, the top 4 (because #3 is disputed) are: Border Collie, Poodle, German Shepherd and Golden Retriever.

10. A team of standard poodles competes in the Alaskan Iditarod dogsled race every year.

11. Torch singer Billie Holiday’s beloved standard poodle was cremated after his death in Billie’s best mink coat.

12. According to Tammy Bruce’s article, current Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero declared the Poodle to now be Spain’s national dog. This might be political hyperbole.

Links:

Historical Information About Poodles

Rick London: Good Things To Know About Poodle History

Alaska, where women win the Iditarod and men mush poodles!

Real French Poodles from the Languedoc

As I recall the story (no, I don’t recall who told it to me), it has to do with Napoleon Bonaparte and his strong martial proclivities. Dogs had long been mascots and soldiers in war, from the time of the Vikings and the early Teutonic wars, primarily wolfhounds and other large breeds. When guns and artillery became standard noisemakers on the battlefields, dogs who would not be shy of the booms or the fire were kept. Among these were the poodle, and Napoleon liked his poodles big.

Known for fierce loyalty, fearlessness and intelligence, the war poodles were known to take part in battles on behalf of their regiments even without specific training for the task. In his memoirs Napoleon praised a poodle who died at the battle of Marengo, licking the face of his fallen Grenadier master. Another poodle named Buff accompanied Lt. Col.Chestmaster during the Peninsula War, while the poodle Moffino got sadly separated from his master while crossing the Berezina River in the Russian campaign. Moffino then traveled from Russia to Italy to find his corporal master, and they were gladly reunited.

One of Napoleon’s enemies, the Duc d’Enghein, took his poodle Mohiloff – a gift from the king of Sweden – with him to prison at the fortress of Vincennes. The dog stayed with his master even as he was shot at dawn and had to be forcibly removed from his grave. The commander of Vincennes adopted Mohiloff, and had him stuffed after he died. A poodle named Moustache became the mascot of a regiment of grenadiers whose standard the dog rescued from the battlefield at Austerlitz. He is also credited with detectiing an Austrian spy and saving a detachment of his company from a surprise attack.

There are many more stories of poodles as war dogs in the Napoleonic campaigns, but the way it was told to me, they actually served in the infantry! Napoleon was a brilliant artillery tactician, and had poodles of his own. While one can make funny, poofy hairdos with poodle hair – which never stops growing – they are finely built dogs of some stature and sport mouths full of sharp teeth they aren’t afraid to use in defense of their masters. The penchant for poodles to be kept and tended by entire regiments meant that their loyalties extended to all members who were kind to them. It is this quality Napoleon put to such good use.

I was told that in some battles he would have his men brush out their poodle’s hair – which had been grown quite long – so that it poofed widely from their bodies and made them look at least twice as big as they really were. Then, on signal as the front lines faced each other across the field, the poodles would leap forward and sprint on their long legs toward the enemy’s line. Teeth bared, eyes blazing, aiming for throats.

Those were the days of muzzle-loaders, long guns that had to be deployed in waves because it took so long to re-load after letting fly a shot. The enemy’s infantry would send a volley toward the attacking monster-dogs, but because their hair belied their true size, those lead balls most often missed their mark and sailed right through the pompadours without leaving a scratch. The dogs were fast and bent on action, the line had no time to reload before they’d be at those infantrymens’ throats.

Meanwhile, while the enemy was busy wasting its shot-volley and panicking as the warrior dogs took them down, Napoleon’s infantry was marching steadily forward. As the dogs burst past the front lines toward the rear, France’s artillery would fire and ravage the enemy’s formations.

This may be mostly legend, or it may be true. Detailed accounts of these poodle regiments were not kept in the Napoleonic wars, even though there are many accounts of the personal companion poodles and battle dogs kept by individual regiments and officers. Poodles did go on to earn their rightful place as France’s National Dog breed, and poodles are still used today in France as police dogs, bomb and drug-sniffing dogs, and as guardian dogs in a number of applications.

It was probably not an accident that Orwell cast Napoleon’s Dogs as enforcers in his novel Animal Farm, for which inspiration he may have drawn upon the fearful legends among the Russian peasantry of Napoleon’s real war dogs in the last fateful Russian campaign.

So don’t be fooled by hype that says poodles can only be prissy companions or trainable guide/service dogs, but look too silly to be effective police or war dogs. Depends on the hairdo, I say, and from the above legend it looks like the frizzier and bigger the hairdo, the better!

Links:

The Poodle History Project: Army Dogs