Keeping a poodle kennel differs from keeping a kennel with other breed. A very big problem is connected with looking after hair. A poodle must be combed, washed and cut. Poodle needs a close contact with a man and suffers without it as no other dog. That's why I'm against constant enlarging of the kennel even though I have an opportunity to do it. I am very sorry for those poodles that thanks to ambitions or unsufficiently considered behavior of their owners have to sit in narrow flats, boxes and cages. They are deprived of man's attention, freedom and joy of movements. I can't respect such breeders. It is necessary to have a sense of proportion. If you can't provide decent living conditions for your animal you shouldn't buy an unthoughtful number of them even if you have a wish to. And some breeders manage to produce more than three dozens puppies per year and are proud with it!
Famous and serious European breeders always take an interest in future living conditions and upbringing of their puppies. Some of them even make inquiries. Before selling a puppy I also ask about their future living conditions of my dog.

Of course keeping poodles in my kennel is very much different from all other Russian poodle kennels. I know that in Moscow region there are many kennels dealing with breeding of other dog breeds. I have visited some of them in order to exchange experience and as a result I left my kennel's organization intact. We moved to the country estate in autumn, 1992. That time I had four poodles whom I already told you about - my present-day pensioners and Tootsie who is dead now. Before that I lived almost in the center of Moscow and I had practically no opportunities to walk with dogs and provide them sufficient place for running. There was a constant threat of attacks by large dogs without leads. Males and females living together in one flat were a real nightmare as well as barking after each phone call. It is all gone now.

Now I want to tell about my running the poodle kennel, which seems ideal to me. In the domesticity part of the ground floor there is a big kitchen, a bath and a big room where one wall is a big window. This room has a high ceiling and a separate exit trap door for dogs. From this trap door they can get to their dog territory that is two hundredth parts of a hectare large. In this room you can also see two sofas with soft mattresses and carpets under them. Carpets are necessary, because some dogs like to rest in "holes". There are also four old armchairs and a table for cutting in this room. All furniture is a bit spoilt. Linoleum on the floor is practically white which makes cleaning easier. It is rubbed clean 3 - 4 times a day. There is always a dim light in this room when it is dark outside. The air temperature here is rather cool. Dogs' front garden is bordered by a beautiful low fence with two wickets. Here the ground is practically everywhere covered by stone tiles. When the weather is bad or when my guests arrive I usually limit my dogs with this space. But 90% of time they move freely across all the territory of the garden and spoil my annual plants. (If you want to learn more about my landscape garden you can read my article in the magazine "Ñàä ñâîèìè ðóêàìè" # 9, 10, 1998.)

There are a few stumps for males in the garden. 2 - 3 times a week everything is swept and washed by a hose, all garbage is removed. There is a lot of garbage not only because of my dogs, but also from big 30-50 years-old firs that grow in the front garden.

If the dogs walk without me their games are much calmer than in my company. I invented one interesting game for them. It is called "From another side". I enter the front garden alone, both wickets are closed. The dogs are standing in a group outside and want to get to me. I cry, "From another side" for several times and pretend to leave - they run to another wicket which is closed and then return back to me. After that I provoke them in the same way. Distance from one wicket to the other is not great, but if they have to run it quickly for 20-25 times they have a very good exercise. Even elderly dogs join this game for some time. It is funny to watch how those puppies that were joined to adult dogs in the age of 3,5 - 4 months at first don't understand why everyone ran away and try to get to me through the holes in the fence. It is a perfect chance to see who of them is smarter. Exercises in dry and deep snow are very good in winter. Dry snow doesn't spoil fur and doesn't stick to it. All dogs run merrily after thrown snowballs, dig them out and compete with each other. I'm trying to throw snowballs to the hills and places with deep snow to make the task more difficult. Imagine, what strain they've got! You don't have to be a specialist to understand that 20 minutes of such intense exercises are enough for a good warming-up. Even elderly bitches Dushechka and Rusja play with delight and wait for a snowball to fly to their path. My pensioners don't resemble "small pigs" fat from abundant food and lack of movements. Their weight exceeds the weight which they had in the times of their glorious victories only a little bit.

In summer we play with balls and sticks. I gather everyone knocking at the room's window.
Males and females are kept together. In the period a bitch (and usually it happens with 2 or 3 at the same time) is taken to a special small room where it lives till the end of the period. If only one bitch is in a period I leave her in the house and put her cage in one of the rooms. She spends part of her time in this cage.

A few days before the delivery I keep an eye on a pregnant bitch though females don't go far from me themselves. Delivery takes place on a special sofa that is taken to the kitchen. I have a years-proved delivery set which includes not only medicines, forceps for placenta holding, diapers, sheets, an oil-cloth, but also exact scales, an old notebook and multicolored woolen yarns to mark puppies. If I think that delivery is going to be difficult, I arrange a visit of a veterinary; Marina Smirnova (our club vet) has never failed me. In several cases I had to take a delivering bitch to a veterinary clinic. They have a good round-the-clock X-ray photography, ultrasound and good doctors.
After the birth of puppies I check that each of them is sucking mother's teat, carefully examine each puppy, make sure of his/her perfect condition, weigh him/her and tie a multicolored woolen yarn to the paw. All information about the course of delivery, time of each puppy's birth, his weight and yarn's color are put down in my worn delivery notebook. After that I decide when it would be time to move this family to their permanent residence. Of course this place has to be prepared beforehand. Directions for preparation could be found in many sources. The place should be quiet but at the same time situated so that I could see and hear everything that goes on there even at night. There is a threat of eclampsy, strong rush of milk, simple unrest, licking navels. Young inexperienced mothers can be helpless and often carry their puppies from one place to another. That's why during the first ten days I move closer to the bitch's nest on the ground floor.

I've noticed long ago that my silver females and white Melkaja Monetka belong to the type of fanatic mothers. I've got practically no problems with hygiene of their puppies and nest cleaning long after the beginning of meat feeding that is in 18 - 20 days after the birth no matter of the amount of mother's milk. It is funny to watch how carefully these mothers lie down in their nest balancing on two legs and being afraid to crush their puppies. Black females behave themselves differently. They flop down in the nest right on their puppies, make themselves comfortable, kick their puppies sometimes, always crumple their bedding and remove a white sheet from it. They stop looking after puppies and licking them in 5 - 6 days after the beginning of meat feeding leaving this responsibility to me. Black females resume their normal life earlier than silver and white ones. They leave their nest and try to spend more time with me neglecting their puppies.

After the third week puppies start making the first sensible sounds. It is no longer simple whining "I'm hungry" or "I'm cold". Sometimes you can see a swinging head with senseless eyes. When puppies are one month old sounds become louder and remind sounds of a small bike starting. I call this period "Bikers". A staggering puppy comes to the exit and tries to get past the threshold of the nest. But it is still early to do it. At this time I start teaching puppies to do "gorshochek" (a Russian word meaning "a chamber-pot" or pee-pee) outside the nest. After feeding or sleeping I carry all puppies to a newspaper that is in front of the nest. Puppies pee and hear rustling of the newspaper under their feet and get a conditioned reflex to pee in the rustling place. In a week or two they leave their nest without my help and do everything right. By this time I start including curds in their food. A puppy is fed by me three times a day: raw meet in the morning and in the evening and curds in the daytime. It gets bitch's milk, too. A puppy grows up and must learn to make chewing movements.

My rich experience in puppies' upbringing (I brought up more than 30 litters with a full cycle) allowed me to notice that in the age of 32 - 40 days a daily weight addition is about 10 - 12 g. Sometimes you can get a toy poodle puppy from dwarf parents. I came to this conclusion basing on my records in special weight addition tables for several litters. Of course puppies came from different pairs but there existed a common trend. I write down weight addition dynamics in my note book since the first litter with obligatory stressing the above-mentioned period.