668 The Dog Book 



of the painting of Captain Fleming and his hawks, facing page 289, a good 

 black poodle is shown at the left hand, trimmed to fashion and we rather 

 fancy that this was a favourite house dog, with this good old sportsman whose 

 pointer, spaniels and horse showed that only the best would please his 

 critical eye. A very fanciful sketch of 1817 shows a clipped poodle in ad- 

 dition to some curiosities in the way of fashion exaggerations of that period. 



The only approach to the Russian or corded poodle is the old large 

 rough water dog of England, which by care might be considered as capable 

 of producing the length of ringlets seen in the corded dog. We are told by 

 poodle authorities that conspicuously distinct as the curly and corded vari- 

 eties seem to be they are nevertheless the same and if the floor dragging 

 ropes of the corded dog are untwisted and combed out the dog becomes a 

 curly, but if left to his own devices again will proceed to develop cords. Our 

 personal experience with this dog is confined to seeing him benched and 

 kenneled, but there seems no doubt when such an authority as Mrs. Crouch 

 writes to the "Twentieth Century Dog Book" that her champion Pilot had 

 cords that touched the ground and she combed him out and showed him 

 as curly. Whether there is a distinct variety or the coats have become 

 mixed by introduction of foreign strains we are not in a position to say as 

 it was of continental manufacture if not English. There is no question 

 however that what was shown here as the Caniche or French poodle about 

 twenty years ago, were decidedly smaller than the curly dogs of to-day. 

 They were thicker set with more width of head than the fine headed poodles 

 we now see. That these Caniche poodles were of high class we are not pre- 

 pared to say, but they were clever-looking dogs and were imported or brought 

 over by persons who were of the class that want only the best. 



Mr. H. H. Hunnewell was the last successful exhibitor of this style of 

 dog, and even after the advent of Mr. Trevor's Milo and his kennel com- 

 panions Mr. Hunnewell still won in the classes for reds, but his blacks were 

 outstyled by the dogs shown by Mr. Trevor. The latter had several years 

 of almost uninterrupted success and unfortunately decided to discontinue 

 exhibiting just at the time when competition promised to become keen 

 owing to the getting together of a strong kennel by Miss Lucille Alger, who 

 shows as the Red Brook Kennels and who now has Miss Grace as her asso- 

 ciate in ownership. The Red Brook kennels has not confined its aim to any 

 colour in curly poodle, but has taken the lead in all varieties, black, white 

 red, blue, amber and silver grey, the latter two colours not being included 



