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What's not to love about poodles?
We have minis and standards, no toys, but they're just universally wonderful dogs. And no shedding! Bonus! Alex's bird dog is even a standard poodle--we wouldn't have anything else.
You don't get partis by breeding different colors--you get them by breeding two dogs who each contribute a mismark gene. Mismarks are something where "it takes two to tango." I've gotten one mismarked pup before, and she was out of solid-colored, champion parents! And since I'm breeding for the show-ring, I'm trying NOT to produce mismarks, because it's a disqualification!
It's one of those things where you just don't know until it shows up, because a solid poodle can carry a single recessive mismark gene...and since the grump in this case has a white paw, she definitely carries two and will pass on one of them to any puppies.
You wouldn't likely get any bold, splashy mismarks, though--most likely a white paw, or a chest-spot or belly spot, though you never can tell...or you could get solids.
The idea of mixing colors producing mismarks came about because people noticed it the most in the products of black-to-white breedings. BUT, the likely explanation for that is that the "solid" white dogs may have been mismarks themselves, but white-on-white marks would not have shown up unless the breeder really knew what they were looking for.
I'm not 100% positive, since I concentrate on the black/silver range, but I'm thinking that your possibilities for an apricot-brown (in poodles, it's "brown", though many people say "chocolate") breeding would range from black to cream. I'll double-check my facts there, but I'm thinking that brown is a dilute of black, and apricot is a dilute of red.
I don't think that breeding alters their personalities really at all, except that the boys become harder to live with.
Once they've been bred, be prepared for lots more testosterone-driven activity, like marking. Bleccchh.
Obviously, I could talk about this for days, so feel free to email me any time, my username at gmail. I can give you a couple of tips about some very simple health tests that you DO want to do before breeding toy poodles. We can exchange poodle/chicken information!
