Grace

We decided to purchase a Standard Poodle puppy about 3 years ago after much research. I (Julie) had owned a Miniature Poodle as a child. As an only child, Gigi was like my sister. She was brilliant beyond words. We had to spell things when we didn't want her to know what we were talking about. But she was very high strung and nervous and her worst quality: she bit me, regularly. My parents weren't good at training and we just accepted her irritability because of her other fine qualities. Because of that, I never got another poodle and have owned many other breeds over the years. But I'm actually allergic to dogs and have had more trouble with shedding dogs in the last few years. After getting our Cairns, we realized how wonderful it was to have non-shedding dogs. We wanted another big breed though, as our Kuvasz was getting old and we knew we needed another large dog to accompany us on walks in our woods where bears and mountain lions roam. We began researching Standard Poodles and took a trip to Montana to visit Debbie Euker and her Standards. We were very impressed and immediately decided that we wanted to buy a puppy from Debbie. There was a fairly long waiting list for puppies however, but we finally got our Grace in December of 2004, shortly after we lost our beloved Kuvasz.

Debbie helped us chose a breeding quality female that could be bred to Shiloh. We knew we wanted to breed our female to Shiloh as soon as we saw him. Grace was a large puppy with gorgeous coloring. Debbie told us her color was very unusual. She called it "golden" and placed it between apricot and cafe au lait. Grace has lightened a bit as she has gotten older, but her coat appears darker when we let her hair grow long and lighter when it's cut short. Grace has pure black pigment which is unusual for a cafe. Usually they have liver colored pigment. Black pigment is exceptional and sought after for showing and breeding.

Grace has been a wonderful dog from the beginning. She bonded to us very quickly and to our other dogs. She sleeps with us and follows us everywhere we go. Our first grandchild was born two weeks before Grace so they have grown up like sisters. She has never so much as growled at the baby unlike my own sister poodle. Grace has the intelligence I had so missed and that "humanlike" quality that only poodles seem to have. She seems to just understand what we are doing all of the time. She stays with us off leash in the woods and never tries to run away. She comes to a whistle when she is having adventures in our yard. She has learned that our free roaming chickens are off limits to her (after killing a couple as a puppy) and settles for watching them attentively. We know now that we will never be without a Standard Poodle again.

Grace measures a large 24 inches at the shoulder by 24 inches in length. Just 3 inches smaller than Shiloh, she shows the size and good bone she was bred for.