Temperament: More Poodle or Retriever or Others

[ej]

I have been asked this many times.  And I am interested to hear from my fellow DK-ers.

 

Let me start by saying, from what I have read about Standard Poodles, I see more Poodle temperatment in Koda than Retriever.

 

He is bouncy, full of personality and charisma, yet rather standoffish (he greets new people and dogs with 3 seconds of tail wagging and sniffing, then he walks off like he is not too interested). He is friendly and patient with family and friends, but he only shows his love and affection towards DH and myself.  He is very trainable, eager to please us and only us.  Highly in tune with our state of emotion -- e.g. he senses when we are nervous towards meeting a stray dog, he becomes alert and gets into his attack stance, ready to lunge!  I believe he senses "bad" characters too.  He had lunged up and snapped at one of my neighbors, whom we later found out that he is known to be a pretentious and insincere person.

 

[Nicole Zink]

Abby is a 16 month old golden doodle. I had a golden retriever before her and in the beginning kept looking for similarities between their personalities, hoping for more golden characteristics because I had loved my boy so much. What struck me immediately with her was her intelligence. She was smarter than my golden at 8 weeks. She is a thinker and figures out how to get what she wants. A true problem solver. She is amazingly attentive to details and I am not saying goldens are dumb, because they are obviously not, but poodles are in a class of intelligence that you can't really compare to many other dogs. Her body type is very poodle. She has long legs and smaller muzzle, not blocky or solid like goldens. She is more independent than my golden was but I am not certain if that is a female to male difference or not. I believe it might be. She is VERY agile when running and leaps over obstacles like a horse. She adores the water like my golden, but I think both breeds love the water. I believe what I consider to be the hardest poodle trait is her sensitivity. Once she gets something into her head, because she is so smart, there is no convincing her otherwise. Abby is extremely social with everyone, people and dogs. She wants to say hello to EVERYONE and will sit on her butt to wait for people/dogs to catch up to us while walking. She will sit in the big window at the house and watch the neighborhood for HOURS. She does not have the energy level of a golden. My golden could walk for days and you could feel the need to walk/run radiating off of him. She likes to smell the flowers, watch people, lay down in a nice shady grassy spot and just relax. She is wonderful with little dogs and children and seems to know to approach slowly and at their level. She is an amazing dog, truly and despite having more poodle characteristics, wouldn't want any other dog at this point.
On a side note, I tend to talk to anyone who has a dog, and always ask the people who have doodle like dogs what they think of the breed. Everyone has agreed that the poodle traits seem to be more dominant over the retriever.

[Mr. Frodo]

haha - Koda sounds perfectly lovely!
I am definately more Poodle than Golden. My mom says even though I am 50/50 mix I am 90% poodle!... My coat is curly and my nose is long. I like to "poke things to death" when I have retrieved them. I bark. I am very smart and trainable - but I have NO need to please - it really is all about me :-) I like to be near my human pack but I don't need to be right under thier feet like some of my Golden friends.. But I am sweet too... oh and I bounce - straight up in the air!

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

To me, this photo really depicts why I think Peri is a little more retrieverish. This is her at the dogpark Sunday - she retreived for about an hour. I am sure a lot of poodles do this too, but I think she even looks more like a golden than a poodle. She is an f1.

[Stacey]

Hoosier looks more Standard Poodle-ish with his long legs and lean build, but has the goofy, loveable, loyal temperament of a Golden Retriever. I don't know a better way to describe him than "dopey." We often affectionately call him "Dopey Doodle." He's just a big doofus, and we love him dearly for it. His killer instincts are a little off, though. Recently, we had an attempted burglary at our house, and he barked at the police (but not the burglar!)...*SIGH* Another quirky trait is that he obviously thinks he's a small lap dog, as he's always trying to climb onto at least one member of the family in an attempt to snuggle...I have to keep reminding him that he's rather big, weighs 85 lbs. and is not a mini-doodle...he tends to forget...

[Jaime and Barley Barker]

My vet said that my seven-month old goldendoodle could end up weighing 90 pounds. Do you remember what Hoosier weighed at that age? Barley is now close to 60...if not over.