APAW – Poodle Pups for Working Roles

Essence is a sweet and social little girl, with a strong prey interest and lots of food- and play-drive. She has her advanced trick title, and was trained for though never competed in rally. In her one UKC show she was Best of Winners with considerable competition, and very nearly took Best of Breed over a large entry including 4 champions (ultimately her brother Eclipse was awarded the Breed, along with a leg towards his Grand).

Essence was originally raised to be a service dog, and was selected over her sister as the better candidate for breeding… but then sadly didn’t quite get a passing hip score after her 2nd birthday (all siblings with preliminary hip x-rays had passing results). She had both OFA and Penn-HIP evals done; OFA considered her Borderline (neither passing nor failing) due to what they termed “slight” laxity on one side (and the other side normal/passing)… the same x-ray went to Penn-HIP and results were not in agreement – that hip measured as average for the breed, though the opposite side did measure as looser than average. Neither company reported any signs of dysplasia. Had both sisters been fully health tested prior to finalizing their career paths, the sister with passing hips likely would have been selected for breeding instead, despite scoring slightly lower based on other characteristics (overall structure, conformation, and temperament). Essence was allowed to mature as long as viable prior to breeding (over 5 years old), and continued to be her healthy, athletic self so she was bred to a male with extremely tight hips (Top 5% of the breed according to Penn-HIP) with lot’s of hip coverage and a family of all solid hip scores in every tested relative for multiple generations. There were only 2 puppies and our keeper pup (Orchid) has passed OFA with a Good rating, and will be bred only to a stud/s from families with many more strong hip scores.

Essence lives happily in her guardian/forever home with her half-sister Comfort.