Goldendoodle or another breed?

[kt12mum]

I'm just starting my research/prep as DH and I have agreed we can get a dog instead of a third child
My dream dog is a goldendoodle, we're planning for about 2years time so children will be 6 and 4 and I guess we can go on breeders waiting lists. I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice or experience of goldendoodles they could share or other breed suggestions.
I'd like a larger dog, but preferably not much shedding (I'm aware costs can vary as they're a crossbreed). Exercise would be 1-2 hrs a day. House is 4 bed with a decent garden and semi rural so plenty of areas for walks.
We do like to go abroad once a year for a week so what do people do for this? Potentially our in laws could have the dog but do people use kennels or just stick to UK holidays?
DH works from 3 days a week and I only work part time so our schedules work that one of us is always at home.

I’ll pm you the breeder.
Ideally she needs brushing most days to get rid of the detritus she collects on walks and prevent matting. I usually do it when we’re sitting watching tv or do 5 minutes here and there across the day.

That could be negated by having her cut shorter which I’ll probably do next time or more frequent grooming-I’ve tried to stretch it out to 12 weeks to save money but that’s too long really.

I echo the points about a poodle cross not necessarily being a non-shedder. My Aunt has a labradoodle and he sheds A LOT! Most of them probably don’t but you might end up with the one that does. My friend’s cockapoo on the other hand doesn’t shed at all but suffers really badly with matting to her fur. She’s forever trying to comb out the knots and the dog hates it so refuses to lie still!

I think for most people that advise against a poodle cross, the major worry is lack of health testing and rigour involved in breeding. How do you ascertain that you’re not buying from a puppy farm, and with the popularity surge a lot of unscrupulous types have jumped on the bandwagon to try and make some money. You definitely need to research the common health issues in both breeds and see whether the breeder and stuff owner have tested for these.

With a pedigree you can trace the lineage to make sure there aren’t any health issues, and if the breeder is KC registered they’re obliged to do certain tests depending on the breed. I would feel much safer with a pedigree over a poodle cross in the current puppy market where doodles are so popular.

For holidays we send our dog to a home boarder. She absolutely loves it there and spends every day playing with the other dogs.

All the ones I have ever met have been slightly bonkers.
Plus a cross like this? Absolutely no monitoring to ensure breeders aren’t puppy farmers.

A nice thing about our poodle was that he would go to anyone and didn't get dreadful separation anxiety. He did love us but he also loved new people.
This meant he really liked going to kennels for a week if we went on holiday and the kennel people really liked him and he got extra walks.
I don't know if this is typical but I do hear that poodles will often befriend anyone.

@GrimDamnFanjo how do you protect against that? This is exactly why I'm trying to learn as much as possible and not rush into anything hence starting 2 years in advance

We pick our mini goldendoodle up tonight 🙂

I picked up a yorkie poo from the RSPCA. After having pedigree Yorkies and pedigree poodles, I can see she is a poodle with a Yorkie coat.

I have been lucky to find her grown up and be able to see her for what she has grown up to be but you don’t get ANY guarantees about what kind of temperament or fur you will get with a “designer mix”, in fact you could be paying a lot of money for what is essentially a mongrel as many people who breed designer mixes end up breeding already mixed dogs so they could only have a poodle great grandparent among a lot of other mixes so no guarantees on health, looks or temperament.

Why don’t you choose a proper breed? Honestly, don’t go for looks only. A golden retriever needs a LOT of exercise, can you provide it? They are the dog most usually found in rescue organisations in the USA for a reason. Poodles also need quite a bit of stimulation, and the larger ones plenty of exercise. You need to check that the breed is a good match to what your family can provide.

Golden doodles are SUPER cute but the ones I've met have all been slightly bonkers

@SirSniffsAlot

It's the old nature vs nurture debate but yes, personality traits can (and are) inherited but not guaranteed.

For example, dogs bred to work closely with humans but at a distance from them - such as herders and gun breeds - tend to be more sensitive. This is probably a result of needing those dogs to be sensitive to verbal punishment from an owner than cannot reach them to physically punish them (most dog training has punishment in its history, sadly). So the dogs that were more sensitive tended to do the job better because they were more likely to listen to the handler. They were then selected for breeding because they were good at those jobs - and so the sensitivity continues. In a modern home, this can be expressed as a dog that struggles around noisy children, for example.

Similarly, it can help if your gun dog is pretty friendly to strange people and dogs - so that it can join a large hunt group occasionally. Friendliness to strangers is actually a baby-like behaviour that reduces dramatically as dogs age. So, in order to get that trait you need a dog that ages/matures more slowly. So when you pick very friendly dogs to breed from, you tend also to be picking dogs that mature slowly. Hence, gun breeds tend to take forever to mature.

Both poodles and goldies are gun dogs at heart, but both have different breeding pressures in their ancestry so you end up with similar, but not the same dogs. Not least, goldies used to be labs and were seperated off about the time pet ownership became more popular - so they've not specifically had much working criteria placed on them for about 100 years. Instead they've had a lot of pet criteria placed on their breeding which has resulted in their current temperament (for better and for worse).

Dogs also learn a lot from their mothers, so it's always important to look at her temperament. Things like the use of aggression (how easily she uses it and how far she takes it) can be learned in the first few weeks of life.

In short, your dog will be a combination of:

• genetic influence, both from ancestry and direct from parents
• learned influenced, both as a young puppy and after you take them home
• personal experience

All of which is why I talked about being prepared to handle the worst of the breeds - because there are no guarantees. Just elements of risk and probability.

This.

The only thing I'd add is that GRs and poodles have mostly lost working drive (it's been slowly bred out of them via selection for calmness or just by ignoring whether or not a dog has it). This makes them less ambitious and prey-driven than working line gundogs, but still very fond of people. They have also not been strongly selected for biddability (trainability, more or less), but their love of people will help you there.

Both standard poodles and GRs are lovely dogs. Personally, despite the fur, I'd go for a GR. I have no issue with crosses (I have owned two, terrier X terrier, and one of two closely related gundog breeds) but I'd be very wary of anyone producing crosses solely for the pet market. There will be a few people who are responsible and genuine, and an awful lot turning out puppies for profit with no health checks or proper concern for the dam.

The "pet hotel" where we leave our guinea pigs, budgies and tortoise when we go away have a resident goldendoodle (GR mixed with Standard Poodle) and he was huge and extremely friendly. A real sweetheart. That's the only goldendoodle I know.

Oh, and our dog comes with us on holiday even abroad

I would suggest that you borrow a large doodle for a weekend to see if it fits your brief.
Unless you have owned a large dog in the past and have plenty of experience training them then a doodle is not a dog I would choose with a young family.
When our lab died my DS was 7. We didn’t have another dog until he was 11/12 because he would have been unable to walk a growing pup. He understood her behaviour and how to calm her down if she got too rough. Gun dogs ( GR & poodles are both retrieving dogs) are very mouthy as pups and will mouth(play bite) until they are well past the cute puppy stage. The first rule of owning a dog with young children is that you never ever leave them alone together whatever the breed.
Maybe look at one of the smaller doodles.
There are a number of breeds that would better fit your brief and would guarantee no shedding. Bedlington terriers, for example, are none shedding and look like doodles when not formally trimmed.

2 goldendoodles here. Best dogs.
Medium size, no shedding, doesn’t affect a highly allergic family member, lovely temperament, beautiful looking, right energy level, loving.

Does need grooming which is a cost you have to factor in.

Having got our first dog when my youngest children were 4 and 6, I would say seriously consider waiting 2 or 3 years. It's not impossible but it was flipping hard work and both me and husband had some tearful moments to get him through his first few months.

Oh really that's interesting to hear @CantChatNow, can I ask which bits were the hardest? Night time crying or just generally having another body in the house that needs attention and looking after?

Night time crying lasts just for a few days, potty training for a couple of weeks, it is the period between teething and end of adolescence that is difficult to bear.

My last 2 puppies experienced adolescence in different ways, once was nice and sweet, he removed the wall paper of the stairs, and developed a taste for chewing electrical cables. My other one.. in the night she arrived, she chewed all the dining room furniture (all of it), a door, dig a hole in a wall and peed on the sofa, later she took an interest on peeing on my bed to show she was in charge, but three dog trainers and hundred of pounds later she became a wonderful dog.

Sorry, that should have read hundreds of pounds later. It was quite costly to get the behaviour sorted. We were experienced dog owners but she was in a league of her own

A friend has a golden doodle, hes cute, but he sheds awfully and has very greasy fur, so his fur is hard to maintain unless it is clipped very very short.

If you’re children are scared of a dog it can’t just be shut in a kitchen or utility.

You seem to be choosing on looks alone . Have you researched the traits of both breeds and how they will interact with your children.

Weird suggestion here, but if you want a medium sized shaggy/curly dog that is low/no shedding, do look at soft coated wheaten terriers.

Now, that's a totally different breed, and terriers can be quite stubborn and need consistent early training - sometimes not recommended for first-time owners. But it's a vulnerable breed, so tends to be produced only by breed enthusiasts (not the big breeding kennels or worse), which is a point you might find reassuring.

Otherwise I'd recommend you seriously look at getting a standard poodle, if shedding is a key consideration

We have a 5 month old goldendoodle. So far, so good. She's actually really calm. Toilet training is getting there. She has the odd wee accident now. She sheds when being brushed but not on the furniture. So far she's been easy to train; great off the lead, will sit beautifully and wait for her food and has been happy to be left for a couple of hours if needed. She does have the poodle narrow face/jaw. She's breed with a miniature poodle so won't be big. I reckon about 15kg.

Grooming is key to maintaining the coat of non shedding doodles ... we need 6 weekly trips to the groomer. Otherwise matting if awful.

We waited until our youngest child was six before getting our first puppy and I’m glad we did. Even then, I’d say our elder child (9 at the time) was a much better age - was never afraid of the dog/helps feed and walk etc. Be sure that you’re not rushing into it because you want a third child substitute.

Oh yes, whereas golden retriever hair only needs a good brushing, poodle hair needs grooming regularly, normally every 6 weeks at £40, so it is something to be considered (my main problem is to escape work to get the dog to the groomers as not many work on evenings/weekends)

In my day all these “breeds” were just mongrels. Cheaper too!

I only know one golden doodle and it’s a lovely, family pet. So would recommend on my grand sample of 1! But I wish people would stop paying £3000 for puppies - it just encourages irresponsible breeders