THE LEGENDARY

"AUSTRALIAN LABRADOODLE"

My own name for them is...

Australian SoulDog

The following is an explanation of what it took to create,

from the very beginning, the now famous

Australian Labradoodle.

By Adam Ford

Mt San Blas Australian Labradoodles

Because there is so much confusion and misinformation regarding the many different versions of this breed and their respective names, it's become necessary to provide an education about what has gone into creating the breed that you know simply as a Labradoodle.

Why Create The Labradoodle

This was first done many years ago in the hopes of creating an allergy friendly guide dog for the sight impaired. It all began in 1988 with the Royal Guide Dogs of Australia in Melbourne when Mr Wally Conran carried out the first purpose bred mating of a Standard Poodle and Labrador Retriever. The results of this cross created dogs that were unpredictable in temperament, high shedding, allergy unfriendly and too big.  After too many failures, the original breeder gave up on this new breed.  Later on in time, two women picked up on this idea and began their own engineering project.

They found that it was like a Rubix Cube.  It must be done just the right way, and, at just the right time. You must breed the right two dogs, from the correct breeds, at the right time. It’s like a recipe for a difficult to make cake.  It’s a combination of good ingredients plus the right timing and good instincts.  The original Australian Labradoodle is a composite of five different breeds.  Each of these different breeds has it’s own unique qualities that were needed to overcome a lesser or unwanted trait from a previous crossing.  Therefore each infusion of a new breed is done to increase the status of the existing gene pool, and to move towards a desired outcome. 

So as you now can see...it’s takes a lot more than just one or two crosses of just two breeds to complete the long and complicated process or changing an entire biological design.  Think about how long it’s taken for human to evolve.  As of the year 2009, it’s proven that upright walking hominids are at least five million years in the making, and I am certain that next year and the year after that we will learn many more things that will amaze us!

The Original Crossing of The Labrador and Poodle

It's not just as simple as crossing a Poodle to a Labrador. I love the Standard Poodle and the Labrador Retriever, but crossing these breeds only once or even twice does not make an Australian Labradoodle, or anything else for that matter...Just as it takes a lot to build a fantastic car, building or piece of art, there is a lot that goes into it.  Let's face it, if it were that easy it would have been done by the dogs themselves a long time ago.  The name given to a dog that has a Poodle parent and a Labrador parent is F1.  This is like walking into a high rise building on the ground floor.  But to get to the top where the view is much better you have to go up.

And that is where the Australian Labradoodle resides...Now do you get it!

In short... The Australian Labradoodle cannot be created by accident, however, an F1 Labradoodle can. It’s when the male dog jumps the fence and hooks up with the girl next door when she's in heat.  Last time I checked..That’s a mutt..the Australian Labradoodle is an engineering project and a work of art!

WHY THE NAME

It took many years for the genetic blueprint of the breed we know today, to come into being.  Once the breed showed signs of becoming financially lucrative, people all over the world decided to breed the much cheaper and easier to come by version, F1 and rode the coat tails of the original all the way to the bank.  As with everything new and good, imitation is inevitable...but this was no compliment to the original.  Many people have been and are still being mislead in regards to this quick and easy version.  Even Wally Conran, the original creator found the F1 to be often unruly, untrainable, not great with allergies, shed and just too big. So he stopped and deemed his project a failure.  Why continued a failed idea when you are playing the lives of intelligent animals.

So if you want a Rolex, don’t buy one from a guy in a dark alley wearing a trench coat, you will get what you pay for.  The failure Labradoodles appear in a few different configurations, and they all have their own names, F1, F1b or F2, or Multigen/Multigenerational, even this term was originally coined by us genuine Labradoodle breeders to separate ourselves from the fake ones....Now they use it too.  It’s like playing game of chess with people who don’t tell the truth.  How else can I say this without being rude?

So I'm not  saying these F1 types aren’t cute or sweet, the animal shelters are full cute and sweet dogs. What I am saying is they are not the dogs who made the name of the breed that you are now looking into, famous.   If the breed had got no further than the F1 you would not even be looking into the breed right now, because they wouldn’t be worth the money or the hype.  Chose wisely my friends...