Labradoodles - the good, the bad and the ugly!

[WonderIfThingsWillChange]

Hello! I'm about to look after a rescue labradoodle, I've not had much to do with them in the past, could anyone share their experienced of them please? I'm wondering about likes/dislikes, training etc. I realise all dogs are different but just wondered if there was a general consensus on them :-)

He has spent the last year in kennels unfortunately (family choice, not in rescue until last week due to personal circumstances). It's a shame they didn't try and rehome him sooner really but I guess they thought things may improve. He is one of several dogs they owned along with lots of animals so I guess he spent a lot of time outdoors. Tonight he has settled really well though, no crying. I would normally keep him seperate from my lurcher at night (until they were more used to each other) but they have got in so well, no aggression shown from either around toys, beds etc and seem happy to take turns in being chased when they are playing. I've left them both together in the hallway which is tiled so much easier to clean any accidents. He does not seem to have any basic training at all so that is something we can work on with him but he's good natured so will be a lovely addition to a family. Then it won't be long until my next foster descends on us!

Thank you for the tip about the stair gate too

He has spent the last year in kennels unfortunately (family choice, not in rescue until last week due to personal circumstances). It's a shame they didn't try and rehome him sooner really but I guess they thought things may improve. He is one of several dogs they owned along with lots of animals so I guess he spent a lot of time outdoors. Tonight he has settled really well though, no crying. I would normally keep him seperate from my lurcher at night (until they were more used to each other) but they have got in so well, no aggression shown from either around toys, beds etc and seem happy to take turns in being chased when they are playing. I've left them both together in the hallway which is tiled so much easier to clean any accidents. He does not seem to have any basic training at all so that is something we can work on with him but he's good natured so will be a lovely addition to a family. Then it won't be long until my next foster descends on us!

Thank you for the tip about the stair gate too

My crate is not large enough for him unfortunately but Im trying to borrow one incase he struggles to settle as it may help him feel more secure. His face when I gave him a kong earlier was a picture, he didn't know what to make of it!

wonder sounds like you do an amazing job. It breaks my heart to think of dogs crying. Ours cried the first few night dreadfully :(

Hope you had a quiet, undisturbed night and come down to a clean hall!

Are you able to let him off when you're exercising him (given he's a foster) - sounds as though doing some chasing of balls etc would be good to try to wear him out a bit.

He's not allowed off lead for insurance purposes in public areas but I've got a long line that I will use so he can still get a run around. His recall seems pretty good so I may see if I can use the private field not far from home (it's secure) to let him have a run around. Planning on starting some clicker training with him today so that should help too. He's spent the last 2 hours playing in the garden with my lurcher, it's been great to watch them in action

No accidents to clean up this morning and slept soundly all night with my dog so that's a huge improvement on the previous night! (I on the other hand did not sleep well as DH was snoring away!)

LtEveDallas The only litter the breeder had that year was ours. I can understand why you are so quick to assume the worst but not all breeders are obsessed with cashing in.
Morally I don't see much difference between producing puppies that are the perfect breed and producing puppies that are crosses and could turn out in a variety of ways. Actually I think pedigree breeders who breed faults like weak back legs (gsd) and noses dogs can't breath through (pugs) are actually worse!

We had to keep ours on the lead for 2 months whilst we fostered her initially - a 2m lead was bad enough with the potential to 'take out' other pedestrians, so good luck with the long-line! I know a secure field around here would be widely used by dog owners if there was one available - I'm surprised that more farmers don't realise that there's some potential for income providing them.

Joni I wish you had been on the thread the other day about 'Goldendoodles', as you and I seem to have exactly the same opinions on this matter! Your doodle breeder sounds very similar to mine!

It is naive to think that pedigree breeders are any better than doodle breeders. Most of them are in it for the cash too! Why is it more honourable to breed a dog to 'perfect' the breed, than it is to breed crosses? It has nothing to do with 'unscrupulous' breeders, because there are unscrupulous breeders of every sort of dog, pedigrees heavily included in that.

Bad breeders are bad breeders - it makes no difference whether they also show, that alone does not make a good breeder.

If the labradoodle being fostered by the OP had been responsibly bred, he wouldn't now need a foster home...a good breeder would never have allowed him to be kennelled for a year, they would have taken him back.

That's the difference between a good and bad breeder really, good breeders take seriously that it is a lifetime commitment for the health and wellbeing of the dogs they are responsible for existing.

Yes of course nowhere near all pedigree breeders are good breeders either.

But how do we know that the owners even informed the breeder that the dog had been in kennels for a year? (Apologies if I have missed that- I have read the whole thread but don't recall the OP saying that)

Yes, bad breeders exist for every sort of breed, pedigree or otherwise, so it is unfair IMO to be so judgemental of breeders of cross breeds exclusively! You can and do get lovely labradoodle breeders, my breeder was incredible, and my dog is amazing!

I don't know if the breeders have ever been contacted I'm afraid.

Because a good breeder would be still in touch with the puppy owners...that's what they do, they should be the first person you contact about any sort of issue you're having with the dog, they should have explained that when they were signing the contract stating that the puppy would always be returned to the breeder before any other rehoming happened and they'd be in regular contact with the new owners about the puppy.

I've said before it's not a case of pedigree breeders being good and cross breeders being bad...it's that good breeders are hard to find and even harder when it comes to crosses.

That's because there is very little purpose to things like labradoodles...there's no showing, there are no sports they're better at, there's very little call for them as working dogs.

So really good breeders, the really invested ones that are already as rare as hen's teeth have little reason to be breeding crosses.

If I want to take up breeding good working or show labs...I'll get at most 3 litters from a bitch, you don't start until they're about 2 and a half both so they're physically mature and proven in their field. You leave 2 years between litters because you need them in good condition for either working or showing and you're wanting the best quality puppy.

You also need to find and pay for a high quality complimentary trained stud.

You keep a puppy because that was the point of breeding in the first place and the rest go for about £600 each.

With a labradoodle, must breeders own both parents - which almost never happens with pedigrees because the chances of owning a dog that happens to have the right traits for your bitch is so slim...if you do use a stud it's more likely to be a random dog close by because owners of the good expensive saught after stud dogs won't let you use them.

You only need them in ok condition rather than really good so you can breed them back to back and get a litter a year, you can breed them younger and older because they don't need to win anything and there are no KC rules about registering litters, either age or total amount of litters.

You've got an extra puppy to sell as you're not keeping one and they sell for more like £900.

So you're talking about more than twice as many puppies, without some of the costs and at a higher selling price...it pretty much attracts bad breeding.

You do get terrible pedigree breeders, but, amongst them are good ones, if you're just out to make money breeding crosses will make you more money and there is very little other reason to be breeding them so by default more bad breeders breed crosses.

I'd imagine the breeder either hasn't been contacted by the previous owner or isn't a good one or he wouldn't be with you now and rescues tend not to contact breeders as they have a pretty low opinion of them.

Understandably given that they're effectively having to clean up after all the bad ones.

I disagree that there's little purpose to labradoodles. A tiny proportion of dogs are used for a purpose these days. They are overwhelmingly now used for the pleasure of being family pets. Labradoodles make brilliant family pets.

joni I'm sure they do make brilliant family pets, but do they make better pets than poodles or labradors. I doubt it. Particularly since the characteristics which make either of those breeds preferable to people just can't be guaranteed in crosses, and the crosses are fairly random with characteristics, judging by the many I've met over the years.

Over the years I seen crosses with curly coats, flat coats, wiry coats, shedding (mainly) and non-shedding, chunky like labs or narrower like poodles. I've spoken to several owners who've said that the dog they ended up with bore no resemblence to the puppy they bought, coat wise. It's a gamble, and if that's ok with the owner then fine.

A lot of people can't have Labradors though, such as DH who sneezes everytime he's near one. They have brilliant temperaments though hence why labradoodles are popular. Poodles are nice as well nut have different temperaments to labs. That's the rationale.

Yes, but so do most breeds and crossbreeds...including labradors and poodles and rescue dogs.

Any puppy from a litter bred for working or showing would make just as good a pet. (ok with potentially higher energy from a working strain, but lets face it neither poodles or labs are exactly low energy from any background)

That's what I mean by little purpose to them, I don't think given the amount of labradors, poodles and labradoodles that are in rescue breeding them as good family pets counts as a good reason for breeding, nor any other breed that there isn't in fact a shortage of.

If people were pickier about who they paid for puppies less dogs would end up in rescues, more breeders would be encouraged to breed well with health testing, less litters and back up if it's ever needed because that's hat people were demanding before handing over money and that's pretty much win win tbh.

I mean the dog the OP has just now, I'm sure is lovely and will go on to make someone a great pet, but if he hadn't been bred with no care about what happened to him and sold on to the first person to offer the asking price, he wouldn't have ended up needing a rescue space.

It's not that I think there's no point to actual people's pet dogs, it's that anyone breeding them should be doing it for more of a reason than just, they're nice dogs, lets make more...because the amount of work involved in doing it well and the potential lifetime commitment it should entail should require way more thinking about than that.

That is yes, they make good pets, but so do most etc.

I took too long typing, lol

"A lot of people can't have Labradors though, such as DH who sneezes everytime he's near one. They have brilliant temperaments though hence why labradoodles are popular. Poodles are nice as well nut have different temperaments to labs. That's the rationale."

Until you get to F4 generation you can't predict which combination of either coat type or temperament in puppies, most labradoodles are F1 that is a straight poodle lab cross.

DH is fine with our dog though. All the people we know who have them have a dog allergic family member. They are all great dogs who have loving, responsible owners.

Exactly tabula - that's one of the biggest problems with the cross breeds. People thinking they are getting a non-shedding dog, and then theirs sheds. I know of a few people who have had to return dogs once their adult coat come in, because they have ended up with a shedding dog.

joni - I think that many people buying the cross breeds are unaware actually of the personalities of labs vs poodles. They just make the assumption that a cross breed will be better somehow, personality wise.

That's such a ridiculous generalisation AgathaF about labradoodle owners. We're not all fuckwits you know

Labradoodles were first bred to produce hypoallergenic guide dogs. This didn't really work and the guy who's idea it was has regretted it ever since. It's because of this idea that the breeding of "designer dogs" has gone crazy. It's ridiculous.

"DH is fine with our dog though. All the people we know who have them have a dog allergic family member. They are all great dogs who have loving, responsible owners."

That's great and I'm happy it's worked out for you and them...but what would you have done if your dog grew in it's adult coat and it became more labradorish? Enough to affect an allergic family member.

That's the problem with the unpredictability of a cross, it can cause problems and even worse by that point the dog is attached and I'm sure the family are too, but if it grows up and causes a reaction...you haven't at that point got many options. Labradoodles are rehomed because they turn out to shed and I'm pretty sure no more than one or two of those are because they belonged to eejits who just didn't want to hoover more. In that situation I do have loads of sympathy for the poor owner having bought a dog they thought would be non-shedding and are now having to rehome them, but. not so much for the breeder who misinformed them to start with.

Standard poodles don't have massively different traits to labs btw, same sort of energy levels and intelligence, playful, friendly...ok they're not quite as likely to try and wander off with strangers as if they're their new best friends but that's not exactly a bad thing, lol, but they're not aloof either.