I found this very interesting. There are a ton of people very allergic to dogs - and a ton of those people who need guide dogs (or who need guide dogs and have allergic spouses/children). So in 1989 a Guide Dog school began trying to breed a "hypoallergenic" dog, which was a cross between a labrador (for temperament and intelligence) and a poodle (for their very low level of shedding).

Unfortunately the experiment only produced one or two puppies with no allergic responses every few litters, so they eventually discovered it cost too much with very little yield and canceled the experiment. By this time the "designer" breeders had already caught on, thus labradoodles are still around.

A source: Spring Creek Labradoodles: Breed History
Happy Tails Labradoodles - History of the Labradoodle

Just thought someone else might be interested. I saw someone mention that they don't know why those breeds are around. Not a clue about the other similar breeds, but the labradoodles have a solid beginning. ^^

[wishbone]

I'm just hoping all of the breeders will be much responsible and give much attention of dogs health when they are breeding, not just experimenting.

I've heard that story before. I must say, anyone who has half an idea about how genetics works would have known from the get-go that it wouldn't work. Or that they'd have to spend a lot of money, time, and effort to get to the point where they might consider it a success. Creating a real new breed can be done. But it isn't easy, and it isn't cheap.

As a groomer, I see so many of these dogs, and Goldendoodles, too, that are just a mess. Why? Because the unscrupulous breeders lie. They tell the puppy buyers that the dogs don't shed (most of them do), don't need to be professionally groomed, and should never be clipped. The poor dogs come in and they're matted to the bone. They're a year old, or older, and terrified, because they weren't groomed as puppies. And their owners invariably insist that you should never clip a 'Doodle, because thats what the breeder told them.

I have a 4 year old chocolate labradoodle and I just love him. I'm biased, of course, but I think he's gorgeous. I get lots of comments to that effect, so I'm not alone. He turns heads wherever we go. And he has a wonderful, calm, friendly disposition to boot!

He's a first generation, or F1 labradoodle (50/50 lab poodle cross). I knew when I bought him that he would most likely shed, because my breeder ... a good one ... told me so.

It drives me crazy that everyone I meet says "Oh, a labradoodle. So, he doesn't shed, right?" Then I have to explain that he does shed, but it's nowhere near as much as the amount of hair a lab sheds. I did my research beforehand. I didn't get a labradoodle because I wanted a non-shedding dog, though did like the idea of less hair. What I wanted a good family friendly dog and that's exactly which I got.

I do know some F1 labradoodles that don't shed at all and some that are everybit as bad as labs are in that department. At least one non-shedding F1 labradoodle I know has a coat that look quite a lot like my dog's but is actually courser. With a first generation cross, you don't get a consistent outcome in terms of looks, some favour the mom, some favour the dad and some like mine are pretty much in between. What is pretty consistent, however is that F1 labradoodles typically have a very low maintenace coat and it doesn't usually get longer than about 4". My dog's varies from about 2-4" depending on where you measure it. It's not the same length all over.

If an F1 labradoodle is crossed with a poodle, it's called an F1B (backcross) and these dogs, 75% poodle generally don't shed. Goldendoodles (golden retriever/poodle crosses) are more like the F1B Labradoodles in terms of coats.

Where I live, goldendoodles are wildly popular (go to any dog park and I see at least 20 goldendoodles for every labradoodle I meet). My big beef with goldendoodle breeders is, as vetgroomer says, that the breeders didn't educate their puppybuyers about care for this an extremely high maintenance coat. Goldendoodle coats grow very fast and can get to be very long (8") very quickly. Most goldendoodles (even the first generations) don't shed.

I warn anyone I meet who is considering a goldendoodle (or a multi-generation labradoodle) to think long an hard about whether they have the time and money required to groom a big hairy non-shedding dog.

Remember, NON-SHEDDING MEANS THAT DEAD HAIRS DON'T FALL OUT, [U]YOU HAVE TO BRUSH IT OUT[/U ... OFTEN ... otherwise the dog will get matted and you will have to shave it.

Non-shedding + Fast growing = LOTS of WORK!

It can also means LOTS of $$$$ left at the groomers as these dogs require at least some form of clipping every 2 months. If you can't or won't do the work yourself, you better make sure you have the money to pay for it. Goldendoodle owners I've spoken to pay $60-$80 every 2-3 months. That really adds up over the lifetime of a dog. Failure to do the regular maintenance means even more $$$$ to the groomer and a greater chance of a silly looking haircut to show for it.

IF I do a websearch on goldendoodle, what I see is picture after picture of gorgeous fluffy dogs. When I go to the dog parks, what I see is a lot of shaved goldendoodles that, in my opinion, often look like gangly poodles with full tails. Why? Not because it's the look the owners prefer. It's because it's just too much work to keep up with all that hair.

So, I'm happy to take my f1 lower shedding labradoodle whose coat has never matted and only grows to be 2-4" long. Any grooming (which is really more a matter of personal preference than an absolute necessity) I do myself.

There are some labradoodle breeders which are working very hard to get the labradoodle recognized as a breed. I applaud their efforts as they do not allow for any inbreeding. They are making every effort to not repeat mistakes made in the past that have resulted in purebred dogs being plagued with genetic health issues. When trying to get dogs to "breed true", it was and sometimes still is, considered to be acceptable to breed closely related dogs (mother/son or uncle). This came at great cost to the dog's genetics and overall health and those mistakes of the past CANNOT be undone.

For more information on the international labradoodle association's breeding practices see Labradoodles, Australian Labradoodle Association of America, Inc. committed to the Labradoodle and Australian Labradoodle Breed

There are also those who are very happy to just take a 50/50 lab poodle mix and have no interest in ever getting labradoodles ever recognized as a breed. Provided this is done responsibly (following good breeding practices), I see no problem with this. Multi-generation labradoodles have more poodle in them (65-85% poodle), as one of their goals is to have a completely non-shedding allergy friendly dog breed. As a result, the multi-gen labradoodles don't look exactly like the F1 labradoodles, so it's also a matter of preference.

Here's a fantastic website for a breeder of labradoodles. Kate's Family Pets - breeders of Labradoodles. It's packed full of information about labradoodles, why she chooses to breed them, breeding practices and genetics, etc. This particular breeder chooses to use smaller poodles rather than standard poodles as they don't share any genetic health issues with labs. Also, the resulting pups are 30-40lbs which is a nice family dog size (not too big, not too small). You can see from her website that this breeder really knows what she's doing and why. My hats off to her.

I don't agree with just mixing any breeds willy-nilly, but in the case of doodles, I find that retrievers (labs and goldens) and poodles have a lot in traits in common. Both smart, trainable, good family pets, both retrievers. So, the end product in terms of the nature of the dog is actually fairly predictible (especially if you also carefully select parents for temperment as well as health).

For those who say that shelters are full of mixed breed dogs, so rather than buy a labradoodle from a breeder, we should just go get one from the pound as they're full of them ... Yes, there are lots of mixes up for adoption, but when I was looking to get a dog, I couldn't find any poodle mixes up for adoption in my area. (lots of husky, lab and boxer mixes, but no poodle mixes)

Anyways, while I agree that there are some unscrupulous labradoodle breeders (as is the case for any pure or mixed breed dog) there are also some really good ones. I could have gotten a goldendoodle puppy from a local breeder for about $350 less than what I ended up paying for my labradoodle. (and my breeder lived 6 hours away) I made my choice because I felt the local breeder was less experienced and I wouldn't have gotten any "after market service" from her.

and YES ... I DID pay a lot of money for my labradoodle. Best investment I ever made. I've gotten every penny's worth and more. (sure, I would have preferred to pay less, but I have never once regretted my decision.)

It is NOT the breeders who are setting the high prices of labradoodles. If the seller that set the price, I would have asked for a million dollars when I sold my house, heck! maybe even more.

So to all those who feel that doodle breeders are committing some form of robbery charging what they do, I ask this: "If people were suddenly willing to pay 2-3 times your puppy price, would you say NO?" Of course you wouldn't. It doesn't always make sense, but that's just the way it goes with business.

Prices are set based on what people are WILLING to pay. If no one wants to pay the price, then prices must go down, or the product just won't sell. Perhaps labradoodles and goldendoodles are the trendy dog of the day. Dog breeds do come in and out of favour. Personally, I'm betting they're here to stay (whether they ever get recognized as a breed or not) because they're great family dogs.

vetgroomer... what is the temperament on the lab/poodle and golden/poodles you groom? I have YET to meet a nice one and I have worked with more doodles than I can count. They are hyper, aggressive, distructive, non-stop barkers even with training most of them are still horrible dogs! I just don't see why anybody would get one. You are right they DO shed... and many of them Shed and Shed and Shed! I brushed more undercoat out of a doodle today than I got out of the Golden Retriever I groomed before it! I also fidn them to be quite ugly (but that is just my opinion). And answer me this, why do these so called doodle "breeders" feel they do not need to test their dogs for genetic diseases? It is all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$ they are the IN thing right now and it is such a mess!

[mightymite]

Originally Posted by xmandiex

I found this very interesting. There are a ton of people very allergic to dogs - and a ton of those people who need guide dogs (or who need guide dogs and have allergic spouses/children). So in 1989 a Guide Dog school began trying to breed a "hypoallergenic" dog, which was a cross between a labrador (for temperament and intelligence) and a poodle (for their very low level of shedding).

Unfortunately the experiment only produced one or two puppies with no allergic responses every few litters, so they eventually discovered it cost too much with very little yield and canceled the experiment. By this time the "designer" breeders had already caught on, thus labradoodles are still around.

A source: Spring Creek Labradoodles: Breed History
Happy Tails Labradoodles - History of the Labradoodle

Just thought someone else might be interested. I saw someone mention that they don't know why those breeds are around. Not a clue about the other similar breeds, but the labradoodles have a solid beginning. ^^

Thank you for posting this! Wish the Obama's would read this info too!

[mightymite]

Originally Posted by wishbone

I'm just hoping all of the breeders will be much responsible and give much attention of dogs health when they are breeding, not just experimenting.

From what I know of the history - I think the original breeders has their hearts in the right place. They wanted to come up with a breed of dog that people with disabiliites who also had allergies or asthma could use as assitance dogs. I guess, the thought was that the poodle, in of itself, requires too much high level grooming to be good for this purpose (imagine being blind and on SS and either having to groom a standard poodle yourself or having to pay $60+ a month to have it groomed professionally?). There are other curly coated breeds they could have tried out for this purpose before going the route that they did (why not a curly coated retriever? Porteguese Water Dog or Irish Water Spaniel?), but you could see that they had had all this success with Labs and thought a poodle/lab mix might solve both problems.

Like vetgroomer said, anyone who understands Mendel could see how such an experiment was bound to be unsuccessful. At best, based on a simple understanding of genetics, only 25% of any litter would have a shedless coat - but in turn - that coat would be no different than the high maintenence poodle coat we started out saying that they didn't want to breed (otherwise why the heck not using standard poodles in the first place and stop the cross breeding altogether?). Genes split and recombine so it gets more complicated than this - but in any event at the very least you could count on the remaining puppies 75% of all the puppies born from these crosses would be either carriers of the lab coat or have lab coat. What's more,the poodle curl coat is recessive, and the lab coat is dominant - so guess what? It's even morelikely that the Lab genes would be expressed than the poode genes.

At least the Australians were ethical enough to stop the program when they realized it wasn't working . . . they are not the people who are hyping this "breed" up now . . .

Originally Posted by mightymite

At least the Australians were ethical enough to stop the program when they realized it wasn't working . . . they are not the people who are hyping this "breed" up now . . .

You couldn't be more wrong, mightymite. The Australians kept right on with their labradoodle breeding program and have been at it for more than 30 years now. You can get multi-multi-multi-generation australian labradoodles. (I'm not sure how many generations there are but I know one 13th generation australian labradoodle)

Some may say that there's still a long way to go before they achieve their goal of obtaining breed recognition. I don't sense that they're in a rush, they want to do it right. They're very ethical and conscientions about their breeding practices and health testing is rigorously done. There is NO INBREEDING allowed. These folks are not going to repeat mistakes made in the past when developing dog breeds. Inbreeding/linebreeding was/is considered to be an acceptable practice in purebred dog breeding. Sure, it's an easy way to increase the likelihood of getting consistent looking offspring. Unfortunately this practice has also resulted in every purebred dog breed being plagued with hereditary health issues. It's a big problem for which in there is very little hope for a solution as the gene pool of pure bred dogs is closed (no new blood to be found).

I'm all for genetic diversity, myself. There are good reasons that we, as humans, have created laws agains marrying close relatives.

For more information on the international labradoodle association and their practices see here: Labradoodles, Australian Labradoodle Association of America, Inc. committed to the Labradoodle and Australian Labradoodle Breed

There are also many very ethical breeders of labradoodles who are not interested in pursuing the more difficult task of developing a new reconized breed. Their goal is to produce good family pets and that's exactly what doodles are. Here's an excellent website of one such breeder. Kate's Family Pets - breeders of Labradoodles She is also a vet and has a wonderful writeup about inbreeding/linebreeding and why she has chosen to breed medium sized labradoodles. (miniature poodle sires to labrador dams)

In response to some negative comments about labradoodles in this thread ... It is simply unfair to blame every badly behaved or poorly groomed dog you meet on the breed or the breeder (regardless of the breed of dog). As with any breed (or mix) of dog, you can find good and bad labradoodle breeders. There are also good and bad labradoodle owners out there. Once a dog goes to it's forever home, it's the responsibility of the OWNER to makes sure that the dog gets proper training, socialization and grooming. Good dog owners will make sure that they know as much as they can about the type of dog they get (preferrably BEFORE they get it), and that includes grooming requirements.

For those of you who are breeders and find it difficult to see people paying 2-3 times the price of your precious purebred puppies for a labradoodle or goldendoodle, it is ignorant to blame the breeders for ripping people off by charging the prices they do. That's not how the market works. If it did, I would have asked for $1,000,000 for my house. Prices are based on supply and demand, plain and simple. If people were willing to give you the same amount of money for your dogs, you know darned well you wouldn't say no.

Dog breeds and mixes come and go in popularity. Doodles are riding a wave of popularity at the moment. Personally, I think doodles are here to stay, regardless of whether they get recognized as a breed, but I recognize that only time will tell.

I happen to own a labradoodle (first generation 50/50 lab/poodle split). I couldn't have asked for a calmer, smarter or easy going dog. Yes, he does shed but nowhere as profusely as a labrador (and yes, my breeder did tell me that he would probably shed when he grew up). He has never had a mat and I really only brush him about once a week. I do all his grooming myself, which is really not that necessary, I just like to keep him well groomed and neatly clipped as we're involved in therapy dog work (for 2 years now). He's also very good in agility. (much better than me)

If you have any question about the nature of my labradoodle, I'd be happy to put you in contact with some of the staff at the hospital where we visit. They can't say enough good things about him. Also, the founder of the therapy dog group where we tested, a long time lab owner, was so impressed by my dog that she would like to get a labradoodle when her lab passed away. This is someone very familiar with many different types of dogs. I think that speaks volumes as well.

Yes, I spent a lot for my labradoodle, and I feel I've gotten every penny's worth and so much more. I truly could not ask for a better dog. Sure, I would have preferred to have paid less for him. I would also have liked to pay less for most of the things I own, but no one puts a gun to my head and makes me spend my money. If my dear husband would agree to get another dog, I would buy another labradoodle in an instant.

The Australians didn't stop breeding the darned things. They just changed their focus.

Australian Labradoodle organisation

I know people who are still paying upwards of $5,000 for an imported "Australian Labradoodle." And that doesn't include shipping!

The real reason they didn't just use Standard Poodles isn't because of the amount of grooming and upkeep. It's because Standard Poodles can be difficult to train and unreliable. They just don't take to the work very well. Ditto for the other curly coats mentioned.

Anyone who understands anything about "nonshedding" coats, and the so called hypoallergenic coats knows that nonshedding and hypoallergenic means a ton of grooming. The coat still sheds, but it doesn't fall out onto the furniture. It gets caught in the rest of the coat, and the result is mats. Lots and lots of mats. Eventually, it's felt, from one end of the dog to the other. That's true for Poodles, Porties, any type of curly coat that doesn't shed. Including the few doodles who don't shed.

Originally Posted by orangedog

vetgroomer... what is the temperament on the lab/poodle and golden/poodles you groom? I have YET to meet a nice one and I have worked with more doodles than I can count. They are hyper, aggressive, distructive, non-stop barkers even with training most of them are still horrible dogs! I just don't see why anybody would get one. You are right they DO shed... and many of them Shed and Shed and Shed! I brushed more undercoat out of a doodle today than I got out of the Golden Retriever I groomed before it! I also fidn them to be quite ugly (but that is just my opinion). And answer me this, why do these so called doodle "breeders" feel they do not need to test their dogs for genetic diseases? It is all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$ they are the IN thing right now and it is such a mess!

The only doodle I groom that has half a brain, is well mannered, and easy to work with is a Giant Schnoodle; Giant Schnauzer and Standard Poodle cross. The rest of them? They're nuts. I will say I've never run into one that's aggressive. But hyper, ill mannered, and, dare I say it, so stupid they can't seem to figure out if they step off the table they'll fall. I get mighty tired of catching doodle butts and lifting them back on the table. Oh, I must add, they're HUGE. Bigger than any Lab, Golden or Standard I've ever encountered.

A couple of times I've had them launch themselves, bring the table completely over, and drag it around the shop in hysterical terror. Even the Groomer's Helper doesn't help as much as I'd like. The dogs are so danged big, and my table isn't, LOL.