My name is Arlene Towle Mills. Standard Poodles are my love, my avocation, my way of life...and the betterment of the breed is my goal. Poodles have been in-bred and line bred for the past 50 years. Most purebred dogs have suffered the same fate. That type of breeding practice was thought to be the best method in the past...Breed your best to your Best...and it did not matter if they were related... did not matter if they were mother and son, father and daughter as long as you felt that by breeding in that way, you were going to increase a look or a trait. Most breeds went through "bottlenecks" because of that old fashion method of producing uniform show dog specimens. Poodles were no exception. We had the Wycliffe bottleneck in our breed and although the Wycliffe kennel produced some gorgeous poodles, it also fixed and multiplied some mutant genes in breed. It caused the loss of haplotypes in the DLA- MHC complex of genes that govern immune system functioning and caused poodles to become basically all cousins to each other. Not a healthy state of affairs.
The study of Genetics has come a long way and we have brand new information on the dog genome with more research being done every day. Now hopefully, breeders will put that new information to work, and bring Diversity back to the poodle with careful choices of sires and dams.
Here, at Crabapple Downs, Diversity is what we are all about. We concentrate on low COI's (coefficency of inbreeding), low Wycliffe percentages, and we are taking part in the newest research project in England with Dr Kennedy on identifying which haplotypes our breeders carry. Please check out www.standardpoodleproject.com
Health and Temperament are our most important goals in producing a good puppy.