Study shows the behavior of crossbreeds can differ from their parent breeds

[peteyg]

This is interesting. A study comparing crossbred dog behavior with their parent breeds.

[Expression of Behavioural Traits in Goldendoodlesand Labradoodles, Victoria L. Shouldice 1, *, A. Michelle Edwards 2 , James A. Serpell 3, Lee Niel 4 and J. Andrew B. Robinson 1]

"We investigated behaviours exhibited by crossbred dogs by focusing on the popular Goldendoodle and Labradoodle crossbreds by comparing them to their corresponding parent or constituent breeds: Standard or Miniature Poodle, and Golden Retrieveror Labrador Retriever. The data for this study was provided by 5141 volunteer dog owners fromacross the world who filled out the Canine Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire

(C-BARQ) online survey. The survey results were used to analyse fourteen different representative behavioural trait scores. As expected from a first-generation crossbred (F1), the crossbreds in our study tend to fall between the two parent breeds with some exceptions. The Goldendoodle displayed more problematic behaviour when compared to its constituent breeds, whereas the Labradoodle only differs significantly from the Miniature Poodle in dog rivalry. These results can help advise future dog owners on behavioural trends for particular crossbreds"

https://preview.redd.it/dtcgrhiaid4...bp&s=00241705fe6dbc1f00ea8fcdda27faa55b8f4b1f

 

[home4good]

@peteyg This wasn't a study, it was a survey. So I am not sure what it is supposed to be implying.

 

[davecb]

@peteyg I think overlooked in this survey were a few things.

First is that it was apparently self selected, self reporting on people's pets. So someone could have reported that Fluffy was the smartest dog ever seen on the planet, and really who would know any better? So many people have no idea if their dog is aggressive, reactive, whatever.

Second, the dogs that produce doodles are not usually the best bred of animals. Badly bred Goldens or Labs can be very pushy, mouthy, not interested in working with humans, etc. Couple that with the same thing in a Poodle and you wind up having a mess.

so I would expect a golden doodle to have more behavior problems then either a Golden Retriever or a Poodle, but it would be hard to tell what the cause is. It could be that the people that buy doodles don't do much real training, or have low expectations as to what a pet dog can be like. Or it could be that doodles have as component parts, some really badly bred Golden Retrievers and Poodles. No real way to know.

 

[lumiere]

@davecb I really agree with this. I'm not against doodle breeding, but I will absolutely admit that there are A LOT of people breeding doodles who don't care about temperment at all. This survey was also done on only F1s? If they are all F1s, that means most (if not all) of these breeders do not care about lines and just want the coat that the F1 has to offer. I don't think this survey really gives any valid information due to so many outliers that could be affecting the results.

 

[davecb]

@lumiere

I'm not against doodle breeding

I think doodle breeding has a problem. Either you want to set some sort of breed type and have some standards, or you just keep breeding F1's, and pawning them off on people by telling them they are non-shedding, super smart, won't ever die, will do your kid's homework, whatever.

The problem with actually starting a new breed, vs saying you're doing that, is that it costs big bucks, time and space. And if every time you make some headway, you say, "OOOH MERLE!!" or whatever, you just can't advance. Or, if you don't keep track of puppies, so you know that the dogs you used 5 years ago produced puppies who have bad hips or who have late onset seizures, or cardiac issues or eye problems or whatever.

I have met individual doodles who were nice dogs. But I'm not so sure that the owners could go back to those breeders, and find another dog who will meet their needs. There's no consistency.

 

[hazelelponi]

@davecb I've seen in a lot of discussions that there's no effort to legitimize any poodle mix and that there's no consistent mixes. Just curious, are Australian Labradoodles not that common or well known? They're well established in my area and though I would heavily qualify that they're a "breed" in development, they have organizations/breed clubs worldwide, registries for breeding dogs and all puppies, strict breeding and infusion guidelines, a written standard, etc. The breeders in my region have been working on their lines for 20+ years with their original foundation dogs imported from Australia and they keep track of all the dogs they produce. They're not perfect but seems like a far cry from the typical "doodle" F1 messes?

Am I way off base that this seems like a decent effort to create a modern, legitimized poodle mix?

 

[davecb]

@hazelelponi

Just curious, are Australian Labradoodles not that common or well known?

It's just another sales pitch, like cobber dogs or bearded retrievers.

they have organizations/breed clubs worldwide, registries for breeding dogs and all puppies, strict breeding and infusion guidelines, a written standard, etc.

As I said, they need to come together and agree on A Standard if they want to move on as a breed. Otherwise they can't swap dogs and build on anything.

The breeders in my region have been working on their lines for 20+ years with their original foundation dogs imported from Australia and they keep track of all the dogs they produce.

If you are in the US, I don't think they are. When I look at suggested doodle breeders who are supposed to be doing everything right, I see huge red flags. I'd be interested if any of the breeders you believe are doing things right, have a web site.

Am I way off base that this seems like a decent effort to create a modern, legitimized poodle mix?

To what end? And, that's not a breed. Once they have a generation or two of dogs, if they have to go back to Poodles or Goldens or Labs to have any doodle type at all, they're not producing a breed.

 

[hazelelponi]

@davecb

they need to come together and agree on A Standard

I'm just a very interested dog owner and not a breeder, so maybe I'm not looking at the right thing but I thought this was a pretty cohesive breed standard. These are the major clubs worldwide representing different regions. Aside from some small wording differences and some minor translation issues with the EU page, they look pretty much the same to me?

https://www.wala-labradoodles.org/breed-standard
https://alaa-labradoodles.com/for-breeders/breed-standard/
https://australianlabradoodleassoc.org.au/labradoodle-breed-standards/
https://alaeu.com/en/breed-standard/

If you are in the US

I'm not in the US so maybe that's where a lot of my confusion comes from. I agree the US breeders I've seen linked seem sub-par unfortunately. I'm not comfortable sharing the breeders near me because last time I asked a question like this I got sent multiple death threats and threatened to be doxxed but I'll go looking for some breeders in other countries/provinces and see if any look similar.

I've also been really torn into because in my area a lot of breeders prefer to do a slightly earlier PennHip around 12 - 18 months, instead of OFA at 2 years, so that usually disqualifies them as reputable when I'm speaking to someone from the US.

https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/237/5/javma.237.5.532.xml

have a web site.

Maybe slightly off topic but I've been wondering about this too - I often hear that reputable and ethical breeders do not have good websites and it's a bit of a running theme that you can't trust their website and you need to reach out to them directly. If that's the case then how do people appropriately evaluate mixed-breeding programs if they're assuming the websites are all correct but purebreed websites are not always updated?

Otherwise they can't swap dogs and build on anything.

Many of the WALA-registered breeders do seem to swap dogs. I just picked a random breeder from Europe (I have not looked at the rest of the website and do not recommend them based on the number of breeding dogs listed alone, I purely wanted to look at where their breeding dogs are from) : https://sessans.fi/en/a-dog-from-us/our-dogs/

Breeding dogs seem to have been imported from breeders in UK, Sweden, even Oregon USA.

Once they have a generation or two of dogs

I'm sorry, I cannot figure out how to get the proper PDF I want here. If I can I will find a way to send it to you. There are breeders on the 3th + generation of dogs without any outcrossing or backcrossing to the parent breeds of poodle, lab, or cocker spaniel. But here is an example from a breeder in Canada showing 3+ generations without backcrossing or outcrossing. "M" denotes multigenerational so already 3+ generations without a back or out cross, for example in the bottom Southern Charm dogs.

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...949d69ecc390/1552957459671/ArcherPedigree.pdf

I will acknowledge these are not the best examples of ethical breeders from my quick glance. But I suppose my main question is why these sorts of concerted efforts are considered in the same category as Aunt Sue who has 15 dogs on her farm and just randomly breeds them to each other, or a BYB down the street who thinks her lab and her neighbour's poodle would make cute puppies?

 

[davecb]

@hazelelponi

I've also been really torn into because in my area a lot of breeders prefer to do a slightly earlier PennHip around 12 - 18 months, instead of OFA at 2 years, so that usually disqualifies them as reputable when I'm speaking to someone from the US.

If someone breeds off of 18 month old results, especially if it's a dog (vs a bitch), I have questions. No one should be rushing to use a stud dog. 18 month old dogs are babies, and there's no way to fully assess what that dog will be as an adult. So that's one reason to use OFA...sure go shoot some films early on but to use them to say, 'this is a breeding quality dog' makes no sense to me. There are breeds where there are lots of later onset issues...the best stud dog is probably a dog who is genuinely OLD and is till free of things like seizures etc.

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...949d69ecc390/1552957459671/ArcherPedigree.pdf

From what I can tell the dog Prairie Mountain River is not in the OFA database. Her little blurb shows an, "OFA Fair" result so I'm not sure why she's not actually in there. And the Tom Sawyer dog is not in there either so there's no way to know if, after the doodle to doodle breeding, if they have a healthy dog or not.

I went to their web site and many of their dogs are listed with OFA results. None of them are actually IN the OFA database. To me that's a big red flag. If they put the pedigrees on the web site, as they did, they can easily link to the OFA web site, as is done in the big Golden Retriever pedigree site.

As far as breeding doodles to doodles, there's no way to tell that from the pedigree that you linked, or any on their web site. It's just dog names and the sex of the dog (which is weird because the top name in a pedgree is always a sire, and the bottom the dam). So when I look at the pedigree, there's no way to know what breed Amanita Muscaria is or Southern Charm Ballerina. It looks like the most recent generations are all doodles but given the questions I have about the rest of the pedigree, who knows. If they are saying that their dogs have "OFA Fair" hips with no actual entry in the OFA database, for me personally, there are still overall questions about the dogs.

But I suppose my main question is why these sorts of concerted efforts are considered in the same category as Aunt Sue who has 15 dogs on her farm and just randomly breeds them to each other, or a BYB down the street who thinks her lab and her neighbour's poodle would make cute puppies?

So I looked up a few other breeders that belong to WALA to see what they were all about. I found a stud dog here . It very clearly lists what health info he has, that should be available on the OFA site, right?

This is what is actually on OFA . To me that is unacceptable. What I think they are doing is that they know that due to social media, people know the bare outlines of what to expect from a good breeder...so these guys are using those buzzwords but not backing them with any actual data.

So I'm not about to cheer on the doodle breeders yet. I think they still have a ways to go on producing sane, consistent dogs, and not BS'ing puppy buyers.

YMMV and if you get a doodle and you love it, congrats. That's great. But I would not be touting WALA or any other doodle organization quite yet. They need to be around long enough to really ride herd on their members. And their members need to stick around and behave, and not leave for any of the other doodle clubs.

BTW one of those clubs, the Bearded Retriever Club? Seems to have gone from, "we're gonna make the doodle world amazing!!" to one single breeder who is breeding one single bitch and one single dog. Dog breeding is not cheap. Trying to start a new breed, on your own, is probably not going to happen.

 

[jhofste]

@davecb Most aren't gonna Start a breed because the dogs are bred for a scattershot drive with no goal. Which makes for unstable temperment and that compounds over time. I have sled dogs and you select off a few times you can ruin working drive for multiple generations.

Then they would need 10+ dogs, probably hard cull some, and properly house those dogs. Then properly engage them with? What? A dog yard of doodles on chains, cable runs etc would be an odd one.

Now I'm imaging some takes a dog yard of game apbt and produces a dog yard of game dogs looking poodle esk.

 

[davecb]

@jhofste

Then they would need 10+ dogs, probably hard cull some, and properly house those dogs.

That won't happen!! Too many of these people live in a small suburban house on a small lot. There isn't room for an actual program, just breeding for $$$.

And when I see a bunch of competing clubs all wanting to be The Doodle Club I see a community that needs to get its shit together, if it wants to be a breed at some point. If you all are fighting with each other, you can't swap dogs back and forth.

 

[elitecheapjersey]

@davecb Considering the Poodle Club of America, The Labrador Club, and Golden Retriever clubs have all issued formal statements that the mother clubs do not condone and will not recognize doodles as a breed is problematic. Without the support of the original breed clubs, they will not be recognized under AKC.

 

[home4good]

@elitecheapjersey It really doesn't matter what the breed clubs say, AKC has their rules for a new breed to apply to be accepted and if the new breed meets all the requirements from AKC then they can eventually be recognized. The clubs may raise a stink and get some conditions met but I don't think they would be able to stop it. For an example of it look at the fight Australian Shepherds had with what had to be named Miniature American Shepherd.

I had heard the AKC did make a rule that all new breeds had to be made from more than 2 base breeds to prevent all the doodle breeds from applying. I'm not sure if this is true or not. But they already have the full requirements defined that a new breed has to meet.

 

[davecb]

@elitecheapjersey

Without the support of the original breed clubs, they will not be recognized under AKC.

Even if every existing club said, "we're cool with doodles" the doodle people would still have to show pedigree evidence of breeding doodles to doodles and getting doodles, for at least three generations if I recall.

The whole, "we produced a doodle and now we're breeding it to a BMD or an Aussie or a BC" doesn't work as far as, "we have a new breed".

And doodles have been around for a long time. If they were going to move forward and create an actual breed I think they would have done so already.

I know some Big Voices in the dog world are all, "any day now!!!11!" but I see no realistic evidence that any of them are working on being a real breed vs a "we breed dogs" thing.

But yes, people who are members of their parent club, are not going to allow their really wellbred, fully health tested, good dogs be used by doodle breeders. We stand here looking at the circus of WTF that is the doodle world and want nothing to do with it.

 

[elitecheapjersey]

@davecb I am an ally of preservation breeding. As a veterinary professional and ethical breeder, I say from the bottom of my heart, please no more doodles. They are not predictable and cannot continue to be advertised as specific coats or temperaments.

 

[davecb]

@elitecheapjersey

They are not predictable and cannot continue to be advertised as specific coats or temperaments.

Their breeders do though. And I'll never understand paying for a doodle when someone can buy a Poodle and get an actual Poodle coat.

I think some of the doodle people think they never have to brush or otherwise groom the dog and don't grasp that the dog will then be a giant hair ball of mats.

 

[hazelelponi]

@davecb Unfortunately in some areas you can't "just get a poodle". I was denied by all of my local breeders because of being a first time dog owner. I was told poodles are too sensitive for a first time owner and need breed experience. I was told their dogs are not "guinea pigs" for people without breed experience. Also, "You work outside the home so you're not suitable to be a poodle person ", and "I don't sell pet quality dogs, only show potentials".

I couldn't volunteer or foster for poodle rescues without breed experience and owning my own home even though I am in a long-term rent-to-own from a close family friend. There was no way to get a poodle unless from an unethical breeder or shipping from far away. I understand the rigid requirements and wanting dogs to go to the right home but it was really disheartening. That's partly why I like reading this sub so much, to learn more.

 

[elitecheapjersey]

@hazelelponi I'm really sorry you had this experience. I highly recommend Crystal Creek Poodles and I can refer you to about 4 other breeder in the Midwest that would permit first time owners for quality Poodles that are health tested and titled well.

 

[hazelelponi]

@elitecheapjersey That's very sweet of you but as I'm not in the US they would fall under needing to ship from far away for me but it's great that there's breeder out there who are more open to first-time owners.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@lumiere The survey wasn’t done only on F1s. Generational data wasn’t collected at all; the first author of this paper has said publically that the “reviewers made us define the dogs as F1”.