WhatDidYouDoodle? (The End of A Valuable Mutt?)
If you, or someone you love, ever thought about buying a “Doodle” you should read and understand THIS!
Background: Once upon a time, a person crossed a poodle with a Labrador. They got a “Labradoodle”. And it was amazing because it was a sweet, healthy HYBRID of the two parents. Which combined low shedding, high durability, keen intelligence, or a decent size without being a large breed,
And they were cute, and they looked good. And they did not shed.
Then, they bred a poodle with a golden retriever. And got a “Goldendoodle”. It was also amazing.
Since then, they breed poodles with any breed out there. And it becomes a “InsertBreedaDoodle”. And to be honest, they’re pretty cool. And they don’t shed. And they’re hybrids.
This is where the story gets really upsetting.
Breeders are covetous, lazy, and above all, cheap*. So it has occurred to some of them: “Let’s breed us a pure line of Doodle”.
“A line that we control, has our name, and that we can charge more for.”
So they’ve started line breeding their doodles with each other and the product is supposed to look like a real Labradoodle or golden doodle or whatever.
For the breeder it’s nice because they don’t have to have a poodle stud or a Labrador stud. They don’t even have to keep a Labrador or a Golden female. They could just keep two of their first “purebred“ Doodles around to mass produce puppies.
And, they can stain a so-called “pedigree” with their name. This satisfies ego, but also creates exclusivity for pricing purposes.
Oh no, you don’t want a Billy-Bob Jenkins Doodle, you want the Lonny-Lee Crawford Doodle.
Simultaneously, it ruins the “Doodle” value for the purchaser who hopes for hybrid-vigor, cancellation of negative genetic health defects, and happy hybrid dispositions that tend to vanish with inbreeding.
In other words, all of the reasons why a consumer would pay over $2000 for a mixed breed dog: Disappear.
- Are “Doodles” a mixed-breed dog? YES.
- Are they worth it? Quite Often YES.
- Is that because they’re HYBRIDS? Yes, that’s literally exclusively why they’re worth it.
Once the hybrid Doodles give way to the “purebred” “Leonard-Coot Calhoun Doodle Line” Then consumers are left sorting out why they’re paying EVEN MORE for an inbred “breed” that was really only worth the money as a sweet, healthy nonshedding HYBRID.
Soon, anything that even looks like a Doodle will be for sale as a “pedigreed” Doodle and nobody will have any way of knowing what they buy will be “probably” sweet, non-shedding OR healthy.
So, what’s the consumer “take away” of this short rant?
Just see the parents and make sure one is a purebred <Insert Breed> and the other is a purebred <Poodle> and you’ll get a strong sweet healthy non-shedding HYBRID.
Just see the parents and make sure one is a purebred <Insert Breed> and the other is a purebred <Poodle> and you’ll get a strong sweet healthy non-shedding HYBRID.
Hopefully the mass-producers with a couple batches of “WhatDidYouDoodle”-To-Hybrid-Vigor? Will get stuck with them. And stop.
