History of the Poodle
I am a firm believer in knowing what a dog was originally bred for before you buy. Simply knowing how beutiful and inteligent a poodle is will not be enough to know if this is the right dog for your life.
The poodle is believed to have originated in Germany, where it was known as the Pudelhund. Pudel (cognate with the English word "puddle"), is derived from the Low German verb meaning "to splash about", and the word Hund in German means "dog" (cognate with "hound"). The breed was standardized in France, where it was commonly used as a water retriever. Due to the breeds popularity in France, it became established as its national breed.
The European mainland had known the poodle long before it was brought to England. Drawings by German artist Albrecht Dürer established the popular image of the breed in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was the principal pet dog of the late 18th century in Spain, as shown by the paintings of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. France had toy poodles as pampered favorites during the reign of Louis XVI at about the same period.
However, in the past 20 years, some breeders in the United States and Canada have been selecting for dogs with drive for birds in order to revive the breed for hunting, with some great success. The Canadian Kennel Clubadmitted the Standard Poodle for hunting trials in 1996 and the American Kennel Club in 1998, respectively. As of July 2014, the end results of 20 years of breeding to reawaken the hunting instinct have been dogs that are very eager to please their masters. It has resulted in a gun dog with extreme intelligence that requires special training: their aptitude is second only to the British Border Collie and thus the hunting Standard Poodle requires the gunman to be quite specific as to what he wants and how he wants it done, unlike other spaniels and retrievers who require no such input since they won't try to solve the problem themselves without it. Hunting poodles typically are dogs with lightning quick reflexes, sprinting hard on command after the downed bird and having a prodigious ability to remember where the bird fell and (though not as good as the English Pointer) a decent nose to sniff and track a bird hiding in tall grass.
Authorities concede that the large, or Standard, Poodle is the oldest of the three varieties of poodles, and that the dog gained special fame as a water worker. So widely was it used as retriever,used in particular for duck hunting and sometimes upland bird hunting, that it was shorn of portions of its coat to further facilitate progress in swimming. Thence came the custom of clipping to pattern which so enhanced the style and general appearance that its sponsors, particularly in France, were captivated by it. The breed has been used for fowl hunting in USA and Canada since the early 1990s, in and out of hunting tests.
The modern Standard retains many of the traits prized by their original owners: a keen working intelligence that makes the dog easy to command, webbed feet that make it an agile swimmer (all of the poodle's ancestors and descendants had or share the love of water) athletic stamina, and a moisture-resistant, curly coat that acts like a wool jumper in damp conditions. Towards the second half of the nineteenth century their use in hunting declined in favour of their use in circuses and status symbols of the wealthy, so that by the 20th century they were only found as companions or circus dogs.