CHAPTER LV 



The Poodle 



HE POODLE undoubtedly originated from the spaniel and 

 has quite a presentable number of varieties in its own family. 

 The closeness of resemblance between the Maltese dog and 

 the small white poodle, usually called the Toy French poodle 

 is too strong to admit of any question as to their being the 

 same dog. Buffon states this as a fact, the toy poodle then going by the 

 name of lion dog on account of his being clipped so as to show a mane and a 

 tuft at the end of the tail. The smaller water spaniel was the poodle and 

 the old fashioned large water spaniel was a selection from the same water- 

 loving family of dogs. The resemblance between the Irish Water spaniel 

 and the poodle is something no person can fail to recognise. 



When the custom of trimming the poodle came into use is not easily 

 determined. Markham shows his "Water Dogge" with the poodle trim- 

 med coat, half of the body being clipped and says it was done to make it 

 easier for the dog to swim. Clipping the dog in winter was deprecated as 

 cruel. About the same time as the Markham woodcut, which is shown in 

 the introduction to the Spaniel family, facing page 90, we have the similarly 

 trimmed dog in a number of paintings an example of which is shown in the 

 dancing dog by Stein, 1636-1678. Stein is the man seated at the table with 

 the violin on his knee. The poodle is fancifully clipped with a ring of hair 

 at half length of the tail and a tuft on the thigh. BufFon's lion dog is a black 

 dog, but as he says that this dog and the Maltese or shock dog were the 

 same and illustrates the latter as a white dog it shows that there was variety 

 in colour then as now. 



Hogarth has a clipped poodle in one of his paintings, but as already 

 stated this dog was the water spaniel of England and was well known in his 

 trimmed condition more than one hundred years before Hogarth was born. 

 It is probable that his being taken up as a house dog and companion was an 

 introduced fashion from France, where he may also have been fancifully 

 trimmed and with no idea such as Markham advises. In the reproduction 



667 



