Question: How fast did your guys mature?

Great question. I don't think most standards mature until at least age 2, my latest was pushing 3. Males usually take longer than females too. It's easy to look at a full sized body and assume there's a grown up brain inside there too, but standards are usually what I call Baby Huey dogs, grown on the outside but still adolescents or younger on the inside.

My first standard had a tremendous work ethic, wanted a job to do, learned fast, and remembered what she'd been taught. She knew all the novice exercises by 5 months although wasn't steady or precise yet, so we went on and started training open with very low jumps. She learned that so we started utility. I didn't think she had the mental maturity to show until she was almost 2 though, and at that point she went from her CD through UD with a TD along the way in only 9 months of limited showing. If I'd pushed her past her limits earlier, I'm sure she wouldn't have had that success. In my experience, poodles want very much to please, and if we push them faster than they're ready to go, the desire to do, coupled with the inability to get there because of their immaturity can cause a great deal of stress which is, of course, detrimental to the success we're looking for.

As I often say when we've got a young dog, I can teach a dog a lot, but I haven't figured out how to teach maturity yet. Just have to wait for that to come on its own. We can train to the higher levels, but need it remember that it's a growing brain inside the head for a long time and set our expectations accordingly. It's easy to start a new dog and compare it to the old dead one, forgetting how long it took that steady, wonderfully comfortable dog we remember to get there. Enjoy the puppy brain, it only lasts a relatively short time. Getting there is half the fun, don't rush it!