What Is a Doodle Dog?
A Doodle is a cross between a Poodle and another dog breed. (There are also Oodles and Poos, such as Schnoodles, Yorkiepoos, and Cockapoos.) The original Doodle was a Labradoodle, bred in the early 1980s by
Wally Conron while working as a puppy-breeding manager for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia. His goal was to create an allergy-free guide dog for a vision-impaired woman, whose husband was allergic to dog hair. Two years and 33 trials later, Conron successfully crossed a Standard Poodle with a Labrador, and the Labradoodle was born.
Over time, the Labradoodle became a popular breed and idea. But with popularity comes overbreeding. Unfortunately, the designer dog craze got a little out of hand. Soon enough, any breed mixed with a Poodle was being advertised as “hypoallergenic.” This was very appealing to puppy mills. Suddenly, there were Doodles everywhere.
These dogs also had a reputation for being low shedding, laid-back, good natured, smart, family dogs—the best of both breeds in the mix. The problem with genetics is that there’s no guarantee you’ll only get the good genes. As Conron said in an interview with
The Sun, “For every perfect one, you're going to find a lot of crazy ones.”
