Famous poodles: real dogs behind the elegant breed's history

Part 1

What makes a poodle famous

Boy is one clear example of a poodle with a close bond to a powerful owner. Boy was a rare white hunting poodle given to Prince Rupert as a gift while the prince was imprisoned at the fortress of Linz during the Thirty Years' War. The Earl of Arundel sent the dog to keep Rupert company during his confinement, and the two became inseparable. Boy was later promoted, at least in name, to the rank of Sergeant-Major-General by the Royalist soldiers who treated him as their mascot.

Part 2

A prince's poodle in the English Civil War

Rupert brought Boy to England in 1641, and the dog's arrival was itself a small spectacle, since this kind of white hunting poodle was rare in the country at the time. Boy reportedly slept in Rupert's bed, was fed roast beef and capon by Charles I, and played with the royal children. The dog accompanied Rupert onto the battlefield from 1642 to 1644, and became a well-known symbol of the Royalist cause. When you picture your own dog trotting beside you, it is worth remembering that a poodle once did the same thing across seventeenth-century battlefields.

Boy's story ended at the Battle of Marston Moor on 2 July 1644. He had been tied up safely away from the fighting, but he broke free and ran to find Rupert as the Royalist cavalry collapsed. He never reached his master and was killed in the fighting, and contemporary accounts and woodcuts specifically noted the death of this well known dog. Rupert survived the defeat, which cost the king control of the north of England, but he lost his lucky mascot that evening.

Part 3

How a poodle became a political symbol

Boy became especially well known through a propaganda war fought over him in print. Pamphleteers claimed Boy could turn invisible, catch bullets in his mouth, predict the future as well as the soothsayer Mother Shipton, and understand every human language while hiding the fact. Some accounts described him as a shape-shifting familiar, or even as a woman from Lapland who had been transformed into a white dog. According to the historian Mark Stoyle, much of this material began as a Royalist joke mocking Parliamentarian superstition, before the joke took on a life of its own.

You may have heard a different famous dog-and-politics story involving a poodle, but it is worth getting the breed right. The dog at the center of Richard Nixon's well known 1952 Checkers speech was a Cocker Spaniel named Checkers, not a poodle. Nixon named the dog in his speech while denying he had used campaign funds improperly, and the speech is credited with helping him stay on the ticket.

Part 4

A working retriever before he was a companion

Boy's breed was described as the kind bred on the European continent to retrieve waterfowl from cold water. That background may explain why a poodle could keep pace with cavalry and hold up under the noise and confusion of a battlefield. If your own dog is a poodle, this working history is part of what you are living with at home, even in a much quieter form.

Part 5

What size was the poodle that made history

Sources on Boy describe him specifically as a large, pure white poodle, distinctive enough that Londoners had never seen anything quite like him. There is also a suggestion that Rupert originally received two poodles, one white and one black, and that the black dog was lost early in the war while the white one, Boy, became famous. Whatever size your own poodle is, it is a reminder that the breed's history includes dogs built for outdoor work as well as dogs built for company.