A conversation for Poodle Variety by Barrie Drewitt-Barlow STANDARD POODLES Cynthia Huff Cynthia, I love your Kennel name. Where does it come from? Cynthia Huff: When my mother, Mary K. Huff, and I started breeding Cocker Spaniels in the 1960s, many breeders used the name of their foundation bitch as their kennel name. Our foundation bitch was named Safari. When our first litter of Standard Poodles was whelped in 1971, we just used Safari as the kennel name for the Poodles. Can you tell us a little about your breeding facilities? Who whelps your puppies and how are they raised? When we built our house in 1998, we considered what facilities we’d want and decided that we’d have a separate whelping room as well as a combination grooming room and dogs’ “bedroom” with pens. That room leads to outside runs and grassy paddocks. Joel and I whelp our puppies who are raised in the house and start their early lives experiencing daily handling and cognitive development exercises before they graduate to spending time in different areas of our house with different people and outside, weather permitting, in one of the grassy paddocks with a variety of toys and a Little Tykes playset. I should add that our kids used to show and take care of our Poodles, too, and now that our 33-year-old son, Leigh, has a new puppy, he’s going to start showing again. GCHG Safari’s Subversion (Engels), handled by Cynthia Huff, garnering an AOM and Best Bred by Exhibitor under Robert Hutton. SAFARI My Never-ending Love Affair with Poodles! Did you come from a doggy family? If so, how old were you when you went to your first dog show? I did not come from a doggy family per se. I’d wanted to compete in barrel racing quarter horses but, after I was thrown and dragged, my mother nixed that. My parents took me to my first local dog show when I was ten. I was completely fascinated by the show dogs and pestered my parents until they purchased a Cocker that was AKC registered. We had a Cocker, but only one of her parents was AKC registered so she couldn’t be shown. One of the things I love about you and your kennel, is Joel! He must be one of the nicest people I have ever met. He always has time to talk, and he presents your dogs so well in the ring when he shows them. Talk to us about Joel, how does he feel about all the dogs and the shows, his support must be amazing. That’s a very kind compliment about Joel, which he definitely appreciates and so do I. The funny thing is that when I first met Joel in graduate school, he told me he didn’t like dogs, which obviously wasn’t the case. He started going to shows in 1975 and early on he showed the Poodles we didn’t expect to win. Now, he shows many of the class dogs, especially the males, and puts Grand Championships on our Poodles. He feeds, brushes, clips and generally cares for the Poodles but he doesn’t scissor them. These days he’s fully as involved with them daily as I am, sometimes more so, though he doesn’t do the 49 January-March 2025 • POODLE VARIETY
Poodle Variety Magazine January-March 2025 January – March 2025: Page 49
