New Website – Under Construction (late 2021)
APAW Vision
APAW began in 2007 as a one-person non-profit organization dedicated to training Standard Poodles (as well as occasional Minis/Toys and Poodle mixes of any size) as Service Dogs to aid partners with mobility impairment and Social/Therapy Dogs to visit and work with others through settings such as nursing homes, hospitals and schools.
As an ultimate goal, APAW has always intended to branch out to providing Poodles for every type of working role, including Search and Rescue, various types of other scent detection, hunting, and assorted performance sports such as agility, obedience, disc, freestyle, and certain aspects of protection.
Primary Breeding Goals
APAW dogs typically are very smart, athletic, biddable, highly motivated by food/play/petting, have high confidence and strong work ethics, are social and have natural retrieves. Within these characteristics, we have a wide range of energy levels, prey-drive, and intensity; the Service-type dogs are low-mid ranges and our performance-type dogs are in the higher ranges.
Besides temperament characteristics, APAW puts a strong emphasis on durable working structure and proper breed conformation, health both in genotype and phenotype, and preserving/cultivating genetic diversity.
APAW on Hiatus, 2018-?
APAW founder/trainer Jillian Emerson is taking a break to raise her young children.
At this time APAW breeds occasional litters in order to continue developing our lines towards excellent working Poodles; we keep a pup or two per litter as hopeful breeding candidates to take over for their dam and/or sire, and we place the rest of each litter with owner-trainers seeking a Service prospect, homes seeking a performance or Search and Rescue prospect, homes seeking an Emotional Support Dog or Therapy Dog prospect, and sometimes other breeders with similar goals.
On a personal note…
This new APAW website is being created and will be maintained by Jillian Emerson. Beyond this introductory home page, this website will be designed more like a typical breeder’s website – and will be written from Jillian’s perspective, to accurately reflect that APAW literally is just Jillian these days 😉