1 62 Modem Dogs. 



tricks, which it does pretty nearly as well as the 

 bigger dogs. Indeed, that of standing on its 

 head on the palm of its owner's hand could not 

 be well done by a dog thirty or forty pounds in 

 weight. Poodles of the last-named sizes are the 

 most common, and they may be classed as the 

 ordinary variety. Such are found coal black in 

 colour, snow white is there not a rhyme beginning ? 

 " A poodle, white as winter's snow " chocolate or 

 brown, brown and white, and black and white. 



Then there are the ordinary curly-coated poodles, 

 which it is customary to shave, and clip, and 

 trim ; and the extraordinary coated poodle, whose 

 coat hangs down in cords of extreme length, that 

 in a good specimen actually trail upon the ground. 

 He is known as " the corded poodle," the other 

 as the curly-coated poodle, and the latter is the 

 more numerous and more popular animal of the 

 two. The corded poodle is by many owners like- 

 wise subjected to the scissors and the razor. I 

 never saw a brindled poodle or a fallow-coloured 

 one with a black mark, and that such do not exist 

 proves, I think, that the poodle is a very distinct 

 variety of dog, and one that at no time has been 

 crossed with either the bulldog or mastiff, animals, 

 which appear to have always perpetuated their 

 colour in a greater or smaller degree. 



