History of the Labradoodle

From: DESIGNER DOGS. A Question of Breeding

The Weekend Australia Magazine - May 7th & 8th 2005

....."It's all a source of great anguish for Wally Conron, who was once flattered to be listed in American Encyclopedias as the man who first bred the Labradoodle. That was before the ensuing "designer dog" craze took all the gloss of what was a noble cause.

"I have opened a Pandora's Box", laments the 76 year old retired dog breeder from Geelong, Victoria. "I'd be the first to come out and admit that. It's a pity, really, because where money is involved people stop caring about ethics. I did it for a purpose.

That was back in 1989 when Conron who worked as breeding and puppy manager for the Royal Guide Dogs Association in Kew, Victoria, came to hear of a blind woman in Hawaii who was in desperate need of a guide dog that wouldn't trigger her husband's allergies to dog hair.

Conron came up with the idea of crossing one of their best Labrador bitches with a Standard Poodle. (Poodles have wooly coats that are hypoallergenic and they don't shed seasonally like other dogs).

From that first litter of three puppies, only one passed the allergy test after hair and saliva samples were sent to Hawaii. "But then we were left with puppies that had to be placed in homes to be reared as Guide dogs. We had a three month waiting list for Labrador Pups, but no-one wanted these because they were cross breeds," recalls Conron.

Desperate to find them homes, he turned to the association's public relations team for help. "That's when we came up with the name Labradoodle and launched a public appeal through the media", says Conron. "Between you and me, it was a gimmick to get these pups into homes because no-one wanted them. It's amazing how people will fall for a gimmicky thing."

Fall they did ! The phones rang hot for weeks with people wanting "those dogs with the funny name". Conron confesses he, too, was rather taken by the shaggy-haired scene-stealers. They had wonderful temperaments and were a joy to train. Before he retired 11 years ago, Conron had bred 31 Labradoodles for The Royal Guide Dog Association and of those, 29 qualified as remedial and guide dogs.

"But then we had gone to great lengths to ensure the poodles we used did not have any problems," notes Conron, who feels the same cannot be said of many of today’s breeders. "My main concern is that people are now breeding them willy-nilly because they are only in it for the money. Now you have got schnoodles, spoodles and cavoodles and they are putting anything to anything without studying the dog's backgrounds.

"I think it is a recipe for disaster because they are breeding with dogs that have hereditary problems," says Conron, who recounts a worrisome incident three years ago when he took his Labrador for a walk. "Suddenly this woman comes up to me and asks me if I would be interested in putting my Labrador to her son's poodle to breed labradoodles. where is it going to end?"

Another concern is that people are being mislead into believing that labradoodles as well as other poodle crosses all have allergy friendly coats and do not shed. "This is not the case and their coats and saliva have to be specially tested," Conron says. "At the Royal Guide Dogs, for instance, we had one litter where there were ten puppies and out of those only two were non allergenic."