The Poodle is a formal dog breed that comes in three varieties:  Standard Poodle, Miniature Poodle, and Toy Poodle. However, hunters in the US and Canada have found them very useful for woodcock, chukar, mallards, and smaller ducks like the green-winged teal  and bufflehead: their tiny size is an asset in getting at corners and brush that comparatively more massive retrievers cannot reach or where bramble is too thick for cocker spaniels to access.Poodles have been used as working dogs in the military since at least the 17th century, most likely because of their highly intelligent, trainable nature and background as a gundog making them suitable to battlefields, as evidenced by their ability to be trained to ignore gunfire.