Encounter with Angry Woman who HATES Goldendoodle

[Discussing Labradoodles & Goldendoodles]

I apologize in advance for awful writing but I am enraged with what happened to me yesterday. I thought to share it and to see if other people have encountered any similar situations and what they did to deal with it.  

I am writing this to share a very strange experience with a very hateful woman I've had yesterday at the dog beach-Dunes Park at New Smyrna in FL.  What kind of person walks up to a stranger and starts a rampage about their dog's breed? I have a 5-month-old Goldendoodle puppy named Lucky, a pug, and a pomeranian. The pug and the pomeranian love the beach and so we thought it would be a nice way to introduce our puppy to the beach.

So here is EXACTLY what happened: I was minding my own business and playing in the ocean with my Pug and Pomeranian and trying to get my Goldendoodle to come into the water.  Along came this middle aged woman with a brown Husky. She asks if we had a Goldendoodle because he was really wet so it was hard to tell what he was.  I was having a hard time getting Lucky to come into the water because he was a little bit scared.   She says "Oh your dog probably doesn't have webbed feet and if he doesn't he won't like the water." She then commands me to look at his foot to look and he does have webbed feet.  And YES he has webbed feet!! Then she proceeds to tell me that Goldendoodles are not a breed. What I have is a mutt and with mutts they are very unpredictable. I said that he is an F1b Goldendoodle with 75% Poodle and 25% Golden Retriever and both breeds have webbed feet.  Then she says "people can call them whatever they want but at the end of the day your dog just isn't a breed and what you have is a mutt." I am pretty pissed at this point and wanted to leave but I let her finish because I didn't want to be rude. 

She goes on to tell me how unlike my dog, her dog is a SHOW dog from a well known Husky breeder with predictable traits.  Goldendoodles are not recognized by the AKC and they should NEVER be but that might change with the young generation.  She complains how the young generation is not well mannered (I'm in my late 20s btw). The young entitled generation, aka my generation, doesn't want to work (yes a common complaint against millennials *eye roll*).  We want a dog that doesn't shed and have that retriever sporty dog personality, but in the end, we don't have a breed.  People are trying to get Goldendoodles recognized by the AKC and trying to change traditions. Your generation is lazy and that's why you end up with mutts.

Why go up to a complete stranger and antagonize them when they are trying to have a nice day at the beach?  She finally tells me that she is a vet tech but proceeds on the tirade about mutts.  At that point, I finally got fed up and told her that what she said was offensive. I get no apologies and she becomes indignant. I told her to please leave.  She doesn't leave and sits 10 ft away from us and so I thought we should go.  As I get up to leave she tries to continue to yell at me she says "Opinions are like a******* and everyone has one."  

I've rescued all my dogs with the exception of the Goldendoodle, I felt kind of bad about that but this is plain cruel. I've also fostered of "mutts" from rescues but have NEVER received anything close to this kind of treatment!!  Have any of you dealt with this?  Thankfully I don't like in a small beach town and most of my neighbors love Lucky.  

What kind of psycho has this kind of serious discrimination against Goldendoodles? Why pick on a complete stranger? What should I do to prevent this from happening again?  I still want to go back to that beach because I am not going to let one person ruin a place I like. 

[33bn7f8evnuyd]

Thank you very much for your answer. It is enlightening. I wonder the AKC CGC and agility class I signed up for is going to be bad because most dogs there are AKC show dogs with serious owners who want titles. They told me about the pal program and seemed nice but I have met met anyone yet... Just email correspondence so far. Should I be scared?

[Carolyn Shusterman]

Don't be scared.  The AKC obedience and agility rings have LOTS of Doodles in them.  Go have fun, if anyone were to try to give you problems don't accept them.  If just owning a doodle could attract negative attention, can you imagine the negativity you would get from the dog rescuers when they find out you are expecting a litter of puppies.       

[Patty, Duffy & Oliver]

My response would have been..   Yea, Doodles are not for everyone. It takes a pretty intelligent person to own a dog that is ranked up at #2 and #4 in intelligence and a mix of the two is amazing and they are really good at out smarting their owners.  I always loved Husky's. I really admire anyone that has the patience & time to train a Husky though. I know training any dog ranked in the 40's has to be a handful to train with all the repeating you have to do.  I would have then walked off into the sunset.  

I'm not a pretentious person but don't be messing with my Dood. 

[Sam&Bella]

I love that! ;^)

[al haskins]

You can tell this lady and everyone who asks that all dogs are hybrids. They call come from the wolf, which makes it a shame to see some states slaughter them using aircraft and hired killers, ah, hunters.. Each dog can be traced back to wolves and share the same DNA base. The differences are that someone decided that they wanted a certain trait in a dog and bred for that trait and thus we have the various divisions at dog shows. The doodle is the same, combining the characteristics of two breeds to create a new breed. As for ignorant people, you will never change their minds, but you can be assured that the doddle snoring in your bedroom probably doesn't know he is a wolf at heart, except at feeding time.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Actually, dogs did not come from wolves. It used to be believed that dogs descended from grey wolves, but studies have shown that is not the case. Dogs and wolves both descended from a common ancestor, but developed into two distinct separate groups thousands of years ago. http://www.seeker.com/dogs-not-as-close-kin-to-wolves-as-thought-17...

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I think that the point here is not whether or not purebreds are all mutts, or whether doodles are all mutts, or whether purebreds are "better" than mixed breeds, or whether doodles are "better" than purebreds, or the reasons for breeding doodles, etc. Certainly, we don;t want to be guilty of the same kind of rudeness and mean-spirited thinking as this lady, by criticizing someone else's choice of breed or mix. I'd like to think we are better than that.  And certainly, we don't need to be made defensive by these kinds of comments and start trying to explain or justify our choices. The woman was rude, period. She was mentally "off", period. After all, her rant wasn't just about dogs, it was also about a whole generation, lol.

This doesn't just happen with doodles or mixes. My last dog was a Miniature Poodle, and although she was kept in a puppy cut and never had a shaved face, I cannot tell you how many strangers made rude remarks over the years, ranging from the snide  "Why don't you get a real dog?" to the downright nasty "I'd like to drop kick that dog like a football." So it goes both ways. We just can't let every stupid comment made by every nutty loser bother us. 

I think Di and Maddie said it best: 

"You gave this woman too much space in your head!!! ;)  Way too much space if you are using words like "enraged" and it was yesterday!  You can't out ugly someone like this. You sure can't change her mind about anything to do w/ dogs.  Who cares what kind of dog she has - what kind of dog you have and what anyone thinks of any of them or their feet...The trick is - you can't let people like this get under your skin. Why oh why would anyone want to let someone like this have that kind of power over them!? So much better to say a prayer for them because they sure need it. .it's such a waste of emotion and time to get all upset by rude people.  SO much easier to simply pray for them and be kind.  It can be very humbling as well as very freeing.  Plus - It's just some person on the beach - who cares what they think of your dog anyway?!  There will always be another rude person around the corner in all our lives - so there really is nothing any of us can do to prevent that.  You CAN prevent them taking more than just a brief moment of your time and not allow them any space in your head! Never let someone like that steal your joy when you are on the beach having fun w/ your babies!!!!  Are you kidding me?!?!?  No way - just don't allow it!  You can't prevent them but you can control how you handle it and stop them in their tracks. Promise once you get used to handling rude people like this it gets really easy and you'll be astounded at how adept you get at quickly handling them, getting out of their space and simply letting it go."

[Diane, Hurley and Sidney]

Very well stated, Karen.

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

Wow, so many comments.

Just let it go. I expected to have an onslaught of negative comments when I got my doodle. I was ready for it.

Like you I was a rescue person, but circumstances brought this doodle into my life, and she's not a rescue.

So far so good. But I was always concerned about the person you encountered.

I have met a few people that have been somewhat critical of the "doodle" Most have been poodle people. But they all end up saying that I at least got a good one. Whatever that means.

What is more interesting to me is my personal dilemma about not getting a rescue. I had a hard time worrying about the stigma of not getting a rescue dog. But then I thought: I know quite a few people in my life that have gotten pure bred dogs over the last 10 years or so. And not once did it even enter my mind that they were bad because they didn't get a rescue. So why was I thinking they would judge me. Doodles do take it to a different level though as they are not purebred or mutts. And they are so trendy. I wasn't trying to follow a trend.

So even if I get the most obnoxiousl person coming up to me criticizing my choice in dog tomorrow, I don't think it would even make a dent in my day, because I am confident in my choice, and I have a dog I love, and others love, and I don't have one minute of regret, so it is easy for me to brush it off.

[33bn7f8evnuyd]

Yeah I have let it go. I am very thankful for everyone's advice.