Poodles, as a whole, are a breed in trouble. In the 60’s there was a major bottleneck put into the breed by way of the Wycliffe dogs. Look back into any standard’s pedigree and you will find the same few dogs listed over and over again; brother to sister, father to daughter, repeated for generations. These dogs were very important to the breed's development. They have given us the beautiful, graceful animals we know today as the modern version of the standard poodle, but they have also given us a high COI (coefficient of inbreeding) in the average member of the breed, along with related health problems, mostly autoimmune. Most standard poodles are as closely related as first cousins, even those with no common ancestors in their 5-10 generation pedigree. Put simply, the breed is incredibly inbred, and we know that's not healthy for a population. So what can we do to combat this? Easy, in theory, just breed less related dogs. 

​

So how can this be accomplished? When I initially started to tackle this problem I was doing so through a couple different means. First, I was trying to find less common bloodlines on paper. I even went as far as importing a couple dogs from different counties. Unfortunately I found even these diverse on paper dogs had the same COI as the American-bred dogs with common bloodlines. Next, UC Davis developed their genetic diversity program. This has been a breakthrough for those wanting to breed diversity into their programs. Pay UC Davis a fee, swab your dog, and send back the test. They then send you a detailed report with results that can be uploaded to betterbred.com. From there, the website offers a tool to compare dogs and see the expected diversity outcome. It also allows you to see if your dog carries risky haplotypes for the breed. These haplotypes increase common poodle conditions like Addison's Disease and sebaceous adenitis by 5-10 times! I have been using these tools for several years to produce more diversity in my lines. By chance it ended up that my boy Ollie was an extreme outlier in the breed early on in BetterBred's history. His genes helped to start our diversity journey, and he also happens to have beautiful conformation, an amazing temperament, and great heath. At 7 years old he’s as lively and healthy as ever and still continues to make genetically diverse litters for us and others! 

​

I started to wonder what exactly made Ollie (and many of his relatives also listed on BetterBred) so special? Pedigree research told the story. A few generations back, Ollie’s bloodline had some intervariety breedings. What is that you might ask? In America, all sizes of poodles are considered one breed within AKC. This means any of the sizes can be bred together. The resulting offspring are all poodles and the varieties are separated by height; toys up to 10”, minis over 10” but not to exceed 15”, and standards anything over 15” with no upper limit, though most standards are over 22” to about 25”. Though considered all one breed, there are genetic differences between the 3 sizes. By combining sizes COI can be drastically reduced in just a single generation. 

​

Not only did I love the idea of so easily increasing the diversity within my breeding program, and reducing the incidence of health issues at the same time, I also loved the resulting size. Many intervariety poodles tend to mature in the 20-35 pound size range, and between 16”-21” in height. This is a size range that makes them standards according to AKC, being over 15”, but is a size range not commonly seen in America. In parts of Europe there is actually a 4th size of poodle. They are referred to moyen, klein, or medium size poodles. They fall between the minis and standards in size. In America we just call these small standards. 

​

In 2023 we brought home our first intentionally bred intervariety small standard, Rocket. He’s the product of multiple generations of intervariety breedings. He stands 18” tall and weighs 27 pounds. He has an exemplary temperament, and great health. He is exceptionally diverse on his BetterBred profile, and has excellent hips and normal elbows through OFA. The average COI in standard poodles is 15%-20%, Rocket’s COI is 6%, and he has none of the risky haplotypes for the breed. Since bringing him home, we have absolutely fallen in love with the size! Not too big, not too small. Still big enough to do big dog things, but small enough to travel well, easily groom, and take up less space in the house. We added Allie and Zähne as our next intervariety small standards. Allie has a COI of 6% as well, and Zähne has a COI of only 1%. That is lower than many mixed breed dogs. Both girls have OFA rated good hips. They have wonderful health and temperaments as well. We have bred a couple litters from these girls with fantastic results! Puppies range in size from about 18-35 pounds as adults, and share their parent’s low COI’s, and great temperaments! Allie was bred to our miniature poodle male, Douglas. Douglas comes from a long line of champion and grand champion show dogs. Show lines tend to have an even higher COI percentage, Douglas’ is 21%. The resulting litter had beautiful conformation, great size, and low COI! In just one generation the risk of many health issues was slashed. We have kept a beautiful apricot female named Ginger from that litter. Her COI is 3%, and projected adult weight is 25 pounds.

 

One criticism of intervariety breeding is that the puppies don’t always end up with as good of conformation as the parents. Often these dogs might be slightly long (poodles should be square), or their ear and tailset may be slightly high or low. I personally believe minor cosmetic flaws are of little concern when you consider the extreme health impact. These flaws can also be improved upon within a generation or two. We are lucky to have a few dogs in our program with some of the highest achieving bloodlines within AKC. All adults we use in our breeding program are conformationally correct with great temperaments. Starting with dogs that have beautiful conformation will make it so their offspring will share their traits. 

​

Our goal is to produce genetically diverse, conformationally correct small standard poodles with the fantastic temperaments and working ability we are known for! And I can say with each litter we are closer and closer to that goal :) With these first and second generation dogs we can also breed up to produce typical sized standards with the same genetically diverse background of their smaller counterparts. So many modern dog breeds are in serious trouble without some kind of outcross project or diverse breeding within the breed to save them. I’m hoping this is my contribution to the poodle!