I'd like to tackle the subject of designer dogs, also known as Doodles.
For those of you who have somehow managed to avoid these things, a Doodle is a Poodle crossed to usually but not limited to a Labrador (Labradoodle), or a Golden Retriever (Goldendoodle). However there are also Doberdoodles (Doberman x Poodle), Aussiedoodles (Australian Shepherd x Poodle), Boxerdoodles (Boxer x Poodle), basically whatever-doodle (insert-any-breed-here x Poodle). For some reason, some Poodle crosses just get "Poo" stuck on the end (har har!), such as Cockapoos (Cocker Spaniel x Poodle) and Pomapoos (Pomeranian x Poodle).
They are sadly very trendy and in demand, for reasons I cannot fathom. Unfortunately in this day and age, many people are focused more on being trendy than anything else, and this has spread to society's view of pets.
First, let's talk about how this trend in crossbreeding and adding a portmanteau name began.
Many years ago a man named Wally Conron from Australia bred the first on-purpose crossing of a Poodle to a Labrabdor. Not a terribly good idea, but he meant well when it happened. You see, he wanted to create a dog that would be capable of leading blind people, but also be hypoallergenic so that blind people who are allergic to dogs can still benefit from a guide dog.
There are some problems with his thinking, though. The first is that no dog is actually hypoallergenic. Trust me, I'm allergic to dogs and I certainly have had reactions to dogs who are non-shedding, as well as hairless dogs. The actual thing most of us who are allergic to is dander, which all dogs produce, or saliva, which all dogs produce. Now, some breeds may cause less of a reaction to those of us with allergies, and hairless or non-shedding dogs may improve the situation by not shedding dander-laden fur everywhere. But they are still by no means hypoallergenic! The second issue is Mr. Conron's belief that Poodles cannot guide for the blind. I personally know many Standard Poodles who are excellent service dogs! Poodles are intelligent, trainable, tractable, biddable, and highly attached to their owners. These traits make them excellent service dogs to mitigate many disabilities, including leading the blind.
Plus, when you crossbreed Poodles with shedding breeds like Labradors and Goldens, you may end up with a dog who's going to shed worse than all three of those breeds put together. Some of the puppies might be non-shedding, but honestly it's a complete roll of the dice. I can tell you that as a dog groomer, the Doodle mutts I've worked on who don't shed are actually very few and far between...but I'll discuss their coat maintenance in a bit.
Anyways, if Mr. Conron had been ethical and reasonable, he'd have just utilized Standard Poodles as guide dogs. They are truly non-shedding and thus a good choice for someone with allergies.
The organization Mr. Conron worked with relied on foster families to raise their puppies, and while people were more than willing to foster a Labrador or Golden, the organization had a tough time getting people to foster the mutts he'd bred. The organization's PR team decided to call them Labradoodles and claimed they were a newly invented pure breed of dog.
This is honestly evidence that they were acting unethically. That's not how a type of dog becomes a "new breed." Right from the start, they lied about the puppies they produced.
Unfortunately people believed the lie that these crossbred puppies were a just-invented new real breed, and soon they had people lined up to foster them.
Just for the record, Mr. Conron genuinely regrets what he's done. He admitted in an interview that if he knew what he was starting, he would have never bred that first Poodle/Lab mutt litter. He further stated that "I released a Frankenstein. … People say ‘aren’t you proud of yourself?’ and I say, ‘not in the slightest. I’ve done so much harm to pure breeding.’"
Clearly he regrets what he started.
Anyways, with how popular the guide organization mutt puppies were (even though Doodles generally do not actually make good service dogs), it didn't take long for unethical people to want to cash in on the new fad. Pretty soon unethical breeders were popping up all over the place, using poorly bred purebreds to churn out as many mutt puppies as possible, all to sell them for more than quality, health-tested purebreds.
Now, there are people in Australia who are actually trying to make Labradoodles into a legitimate breed. They are NOT breeding first-generation mixes any longer and they've outcrossed to other breeds (such as Curly Coat Retriever and the Cocker Spaniel) so they aren't just Poodle x Labrador mixes any longer. I've been told they promote health testing and they have a written standard, and they freely admit their dogs are a work in progress. So somewhere, in Australia, there are dogs who may be considered to be part of a true new breed of dog. But they have many generations behind them, and many more generations to go before they will truly be a breed. I do give them credit for doing things ethically though!
Everyone who thinks you get a "new breed" by simply crossbreeding, however, is simply wrong. The Australian Labradoodle may be being bred ethically, and eventually reach real breed legitimacy, but people all over North America are churning out Poodle mutts without breeding ethically and without any goal in mind other than making money hand over fist.
And heaven forbid you call their dogs mutts! Somehow this deeply offends them. Since when was owning a mutt a bad thing?
When I was a kid, a mixed breed wasn't considered a "new purebred," they were just mutts. And back then there was no shame in owning a nice mutt dog. Nobody lusted after expensive designer mutts. Nobody felt offended that their mutt wasn't a "new pure breed."
Before I was born and before he fell in love with purebreds, my dad's first dog was a Cocker Spaniel x Springer Spaniel bitch. No shame in that! If someone asked him what kind of dog he had, he'd say a Cocker, Springer mix. Not a Cockaspring. Not a Sprocker. Just a Cocker/Springer mix. Or sometimes, he'd say just "a spaniel mutt."
I owned a Chihuahua x Dachshund bitch for just shy of nine years. I loved that little dog so much, and I miss her every day. Like many designer dog mutts, she had major health issues that ultimately shortened her life and took her far too young. I usually called her a Chihuahua mix, or just my tiny mutt. I never called her a Chiweenie, and I never pretended she was a purebred. It doesn't mean I loved her any less than all of the quality purebreds I've owned.
However, I really can't tell you how many people tried to convince me she was a fancy new purebred. And many of the suggested I should breed her. They didn't care that she was struggling with numerous heritable genetic defects, they only saw vicarious dollar signs.
In my area, I've seen so-called Chiweenie mutts sell for thousands of dollar. I should add I got her from a rescue organization, for just $50. Thank goodness because due to her health issues, she ended up costing me many thousands of dollars more than any of my other dogs, in veterinary bills.
It really does bother me, because most people who produce designer dogs are doing so in extremely unethical ways. They often skip even basic health testing, and since reputable breeders won't allow them to use quality purebreds (for what should be obvious reasons), most designer dogs are bred from extremely haphazardly bred purebreds. They all too often end up with many health issues.
Many of the designer dog breeders also heavily lie to sell their dogs; often they make such ludicrous claims that I wonder how anyone believes them!
And shockingly they often sell untested mutt puppies for more money than actual real purebreds from ethical breeders.
One of my former Doodle clients was purchased from a very disreputable, unethical breeder for $5,000. I remember his purchase price because his owner made sure to frequently remind me how expensive his dog was, as if that meant anything. When the dog began showing signs of hip problems, I asked if the parents had been screened or health tested for orthopedic issues. That poor dog's owner said that the breeder he bought from told him that Doodles don't need health screening or testing, claimed that they have hybrid vigor, and that whenever you crossbreed you prevent all health problems.
For the record, his mutt was a Poodle, Labrador cross. Both Standard Poodles and Labradors can suffer from hip problems. Without health screening, his breeder had bred two dogs who probably had awful hips, producing pups with more awful hips. That $5,000 Doodle? Ended up having to get bilateral surgery due to his severely deformed hips.
Hybrid vigor is a thing, but you don't automatically get it just by breeding two different breeds of dogs together.
Also, I've noticed that Doodle mutt owners are hyper-defensive about their dogs. The need to have everyone around them validate that their mutt is a purebred seems to be a driving force for them. As a dog groomer I want to please my clients, but I'm not going to lie to appease them. A mutt is a mutt. Again, there's no shame in that, so I don't understand why it so offends people who own Doodle mutts. I can only guess that it threatens their sense of value...after all, who would pay $5,000 for a mutt? There are plenty in our shelters and rescues, for far less money.
The salon I used to work at had a computer system where you couldn't add breeds of dog, you could only select from a drop-menu. This wasn't ideal because many actual real purebred breeds weren't listed in the drop menu, which meant we often had to put purebreds in as some other breed that was somewhat similar for pricing. It also meant I couldn't make up breed names the way unethical mutt breeders do. I can't tell you how grossly offended many designer mutt owners got when I told them no, I can't put their, say, Pug x Beagle mix in as a Puggle. I can only enter it as a Pug Mix or a Beagle Mix. Even when I explained that the drop menu is limiting, they'd be angry. Heaven forbid you mention that their mix is not purebred! They'd sometimes storm out in a fit of rage. Can you imagine?
But what about the dogs themselves?
As a professional dog groomer, I have had plenty of purposely and unethically bred designer dog mutts on my table. I've found that, unlike the many mutts I've groomed from shelters and rescues, these designer dog bred mutts tend to be the most unpredictable, in terms of temperament. I just don't enjoy them. Amid all the myriad of intentional badly-bred mixes, I'm especially un-fond of Doodles, though. Specifically, Poodle x Lab or Golden.
Poodles are amazing. I simply love Poodles. Labs...well, I'm personally not a fancier of the breed, but there are plenty of great Labs out there. I'm on the fence about Goldens; the Golden I owned was amazing, and when I scaled back my grooming to 40 pounds and under I grandfathered in many quality Goldens that are a genuine pleasure to work with. However, I was also badly mauled by a Golden and I have been badly bitten by many temperamentally-unstable Goldens; designer mutt breeders don't have the whole market on unethically producing puppies. But all in all, Labs and Goldens are usually good dogs.
I really don't know why, but when you cross a Poodle to a Lab or Golden, the temperament blend isn't very good. It doesn't make sense, they're all water retriever breeds, but it's true in my experience anyways. They are just terrible, awful dogs. I hate to call any dog stupid, but it's the only word for it. They're brainless dogs. I'm not alone in this...many dog professionals (from groomers, to dog walkers, to veterinarians, and even professional trainers) dislike working with them.
Furthermore, they are all too often owned by people who do not adequately train them or exercise them enough, so in addition to their naturally obnoxious temperament, they are also always bouncing off the walls (sometimes literally; there were a few dents in one wall in the salon I worked at, where a Doodle kept slipping off his leash, running at the wall, and smashing into it head first. Repeatedly.) and they can't ever seem to focus on anything. Trying to convince a Doodle to hold still for grooming is nigh on impossible. Even Doodles I'd groomed since puppyhood could never learn or behave or hold still, and grooming a constantly moving target is difficult to say the least. In fact it can be downright dangerous, for dog and groomer alike.
What I hate the most about them, though, is their coats.
OH GOD, THE COATS. As I said before, most Doodles are not non-shedding; you can't cherry-pick genetics, after all. Worse yet, it rarely comes off the dog. The Poodle-like qualities of the coat (crimp and curl to be exact) hold the dead, shed-out hairs in, and that leads to matting.
Doodles are, by and large, the Perfect Storm of grotesquely matted coats on a dog. I just can't sugar-coat it. I have never met a single Doodle who had a coat over an inch long who wasn't sporting mats so thick you can barely get a clipper blade under them. Almost every single Doodle I've ever worked on, at every appointment, had to be naked-shaved due to matting. Their coats don't come off in clumps, it's more like shearing a sheep: the matted pelt comes off in one or two large pieces, usually. Sadly this isn't just a cosmetic issue, as there's often damage to the dog from the matting, too...mats pull on the skin and can cause all sorts of issues, from mild bruising, to full on ulcerated mat-sores full of pus and maggots. No, I'm not kidding. Maggots. Exacerbating the issue is that it seems like every person who owns a Doodle won't properly use a brush or comb, so their dogs end up matted like you wouldn't believe. And inevitably they want their matted Doodle to be long and fluffy! I've had people cuss me out because I refused to "just brush out" their totally matted Doodle. The fact is brushing out a matted coat is horribly painful for the dog, and even though I do not like Doodles, I am never going to torture any dog. That's what brushing out a badly matted dog is: TORTURE.
I feel very comfortable stating that Doodles, particularly Goldendoodles and Aussiedoodles, are more high-maintenance coat-wise than purebred Standard Poodles.
When I left the salon and began grooming independently, I made a decision early-on: NO MORE DOODLES. I hate grooming them. They're too stupid and obnoxious to work with, their coats are awful, their owners aren't a whole lot more reasonable than a box of hair, and they simply take too long to be worth the effort. Every groomer under the sun undercharges Doodles, I swear. I simply don't want to ever lay hands on another one as long as I live.
It's been about two years since I last groomed a Doodle and I can tell you right now, my health and sanity are better for it. My back problems are gone because I'm no longer struggling to hang onto a dog who refuses to hold still or who's constantly trying to leap off the table. I haven't gotten bit by a dog in those two years either. My life is just better off without these terrible designer dogs.
Now, I want to take a moment to state that, while I deeply love and prefer quality purebred dogs, I don't actually hate all mutts or crossbreds. But I have a huge problem with unethical breeders churning out mutt dogs with questionable genetics and poor temperaments just to make a quick buck. Clearly, they don't have the health or best interests of the dogs at heart, and that I think is the worst part of the designer dog craze.
This blog entry was originally posted on November 23, 2014 @ 02:10. It has been re-written, re-worded, and re-posted here for posterity.
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