[Cirlonde]

I know I'm just repeating confirmation of what previous posters have said, but I have to take the opportunity to brag!

I had a toy poodle for nine years, from the time he was a puppy until the day we had to have him put down due to congestive heart failure. I didn't realize just how brilliant that dog was until we got our Yorkie, Chloe, after losing him. Zach, the poodle, understood SOOOOOO many words, and I never really worked hard at teaching him. He just picked up on things. It didn't matter what tone of voice you said a word in, he still knew what you meant and responded accordingly. He had numerous different "barks" to tell us different things (outside, water, food..whatever) he wanted us to do, he could make us understand easily.

And potty training? OH MY GOSH!!! I did not appreciate that dog enough. Teaching him to ask to go outside was the simplest thing I've ever done. I don't even know if you could call it "teaching"...he just did it. And even towards the end of his life when he was having terrible diarrhea, he would panic and try to make it to a tile floor so he didn't mess on my carpet. It broke my heart to see how hard he still tried to be good even though he was very sick.

If it hadn't been for not wanting to be constantly comparing my new dog to Zach, I would probably have gotten another poodle instead of a Yorkie. They are just unbelievably smart. If they just didn't look like such sissy dogs....you just can't avoid that even when you don't do the "standard" haircut!
-C