American Poodle

Description

1. 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.