Posted by Jeanne on March 25, 2009
The next time you go to the circus, ask the clown what kind of dog he has for a working companion. You know what his answer might be? A poodle. The reason clowns and stage performers prefer poodles to other dogs is that they are easier to train, and they can be taught more tricks.
Because they are so easy to train, the poodle is a favorite of people who live in big cities. If you walk along Park Avenue or in Central Park in New York City, you’ll see more poodles than any other kind of dog. And, even though most city people live in small apartments, the dogs they own aren’t always small ones. Their poodles are all sizes ranging from the tiny toys that weigh only a few pounds to huge “standards” weighing fifty or sixty pounds.
It’s strange that city people should like these dogs, especially when you consider how much poodles like water. Years ago, the poodle was primarily a hunting dog, used mostly to retrieve water fowl for their masters. In Europe, hunters still use the poodle this way; in this country, he is mostly a pet.
It you think about the name poodle for a minute, you’ll see how much it is like the word puddle. The similarity between the words is no accident. The German word for poodle is pudel. Pudel can mean either dog or puddle. Through the years the spelling of the English word came out as we know it today – poodle.
Posted by Jeanne on March 18, 2009
You must have heard at one time or another that good things come in small packages. Of all living things, one of the most appealing is a kitten. But, for people who would rather have a dog than a kitten and who have neither the room nor the energy for a large dog, one of the toy dogs is the perfect answer.
Some of these small dogs look so much like their bigger brothers that it is hard to tell them apart in a photograph where there is no indication of relative size. The Toy Poodle looks exactly like the Standard Poodle. The Italian Greyhound and the big, sleek, racing Greyhound are exact duplicates except for size. And, the Miniature Pinscher looks enough like the Doberman to make people confuse the two.
There is a toy dog for every taste. It you have the time to groom your pet, there are a number of long hairs you can choose from. The Yorkshire Terrier will require the most attention – you’ll even have to put his hair up in curlers. The Pekinese, the Pomeranian, and the Papillon all enjoy a daily brushing.
The name Papillon, incidentally, comes from the French word that is spelled the same way and means butterfly. This dog is so named because of its ears. When held erect, the ears and the fringes along the side of the face of the Papillon look a lot like a butterfly.
lf you want a small dog that requires a minimum of care, you can pick one of the short hairs like the Toy Manchester, the Pug, or the Chihuahua, named after a state in Mexico, and pronounced chez-wa-wa. And, if you want a dog with no hair at all, you can get a Mexican hairless.