Regarding color, some funky stuff goes on in poodles when it comes to inheritance on the red/apricot/cream/white spectrum. Even if we were dealing with a classic Mendelian dominant vs recessive inheritance pattern, the Punnett squares we learned in high school biology are only an average. Even if your Punnett square says you should get 25% of a color, that's just 25% ON AVERAGE. Randomness could give you 0% or 100% in any particular litter. With more breedings you would get closer to the prediction. Mendel was conducting his experiments with far more than two pea plants at a time, after all, which brought his results closer to the expected averages.
Now, where it gets more fun is that color intensity inheritance is not strictly Mendelian in poodles. Red vs black is Mendelian; red is recessive to black. However, red, apricot, cream, and white are all genetically red. The intensity of that red is governed by a gene that, somewhere in doggy history, accidentally got duplicated on the chromosome. A few duplications of the gene gives you a pale color: cream. Lots of duplications gives you a dark color: red. For even more fun, there seems to be an additional gene for white that nobody had identified yet. I don't know whether the white in Maltese dogs is the same gene as the white in Poodles.
At any rate, if you want to breed a line of bright red dogs, it will be a multigenerational project. You are best off avoiding outcrosses to white and cream dogs. Outcross to black (to get the intensity and other desirable traits if needed). The first generation of puppies will be mostly or all black, as black is dominant over red. Get them tested to see which are red carriers; keep the carriers for your next breeding generation. Cross them back to red; keep the ones with the best hue. Keep doing this over multi generations. Yep, all that genetic testing is expensive. Yep, it's a hassle finding buyers for black poodle puppies, as black is an unfashionable color right now. Yep, there's a reason really really nice quality red poodles are rare and cost a pretty penny. There is a lot of work and cost that goes into doing it right.
