The Wonderful World of Doodles

[shelly]

With all of the excitement of DK lately from the new logo to the new tees, pjs, etc sporting their favorite 'doodle sayings' - it got me wondering about two things...1) How did you find out about "doodles"?  and 2) How old is your doodle(s)?  For us, well, we sort of just stumbled upon the 'breed'.  My kids wanted a dog. Our Golden Retriever was gone for about 7 years.  I truly missed him and missed having a dog, but LOVED the fact  of being hair free.  We thought that only 'lap' dogs were 'no- shed' and we really didn't want a lap dog (well, my youngest son did).  So my oldest went on dogbreeder.com and filled out a questionnaire about what we "wanted" in a dog, and up popped a "Native american Indian Dog" - a stunning looking dog...(looked liked a wolf), but saw some things that they were part wolf and well, that ended that.  We then we found, "doodles".  Labradoodles, Goldendoodles, and Aussiedoodles.  We started out looking for Goldendoodles as we just adored our golden retriever, but my younger son truly wanted a smaller dog that he could hold.  We saw that aussiedoodles came in smaller sizes,(we never discovered that there were mini goldendoodles or I would be writing about our mini gooldendoodle now I'm sure),  and so began our quest to find a breeder of aussiedoodles....That was bout 4 1/2 years ago.  Tori just turned 3 in March, and I have to say we love her to pieces!  She truly is our loving 'doodle-girl'!

[Camilla and Darwin]

I have always loved dogs and studying the breeds so I stumbled across Goldendoodles a year or so before we actually started looking. Honestly though, by the time we WERE actually looking I had settled on a Great Dane. We had met a really great breeder at a dog show, and we were planning on doing a co-own situation with a puppy. His AKC name was going to be "Icon Hudson's Origin of the Species" called Darwin. :-)

Back then I thought that the reasons for going with a good breeder was so you would get a more attractive dog. I hardly knew anything about puppy mills, back yard breeders, etc. I thought it was simply a matter of prettier dogs from good breeders, or regular dogs from classifieds. I know, awful right?

Then one day, I came across this litter of F1 Goldendoodles in the classifieds, and they were so cute that I made DH take me to see them. We were not planning on getting one of course, I just wanted to play with puppies. Well, long story short I saw Darwin, picked him up, cuddled him and all thoughts of a big graceful Dane fled my mind. We told her right then that we wanted him. I have NEVER regretted going with a doodle, and having a neutered, mixed breed. I wouldn't have it any other way! By the way, he was 12 weeks old when we got him and the breeder had named him "Wolverine". Couldn't be more inappropriate for him! LOL

Darwin is a little over 2 years old...

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Wolverine????  Not for sweet Darwin.  What was that breeder thinking. LOL

Ned was named Speed - compared to the family's whippets, also inappropriate.

[shelly]

"WOLVERINE"?! Darwin????? NAH! Bet HE'S glad you came along and found him!  (and so are we!)

[Linda and Murphy]

My story is similar to yours. Our 15 yr old Brittany died a month before Katrina. We were 9 months without a dog, our house was a mess, and nothing was normal. My 15 yr old son said " Mom we HAVE  to get a dog". Like you, I had gotten used to not having hair everywhere. I suggested a Poodle. DS asked if I had "lost my mind". ;-)

He then informed me that he was looking for a Rhodesian Ridgeback. I told him I had seen lots of wild animals in our area since Katrina, but not one lion.

I then frantically began searching for a "non shedding" dog. I came across Goldendoodles. There was a family in CA I think that had a webpage on their doodle, Kona. (I don't know if they are on this site). That dood's personality came out in all of the photographs (one where he was scared of the roomba). I was totally sold. I just had to find one. Quickly.

Murphy came from a backyard breeder (though they had done hip testing) whose husband was stationed at Fort Hood, TX, and was currently in Iraq. She had 4 kids under 8 years old. The pictures were adorable and I thought she certainly could use the money. She met me outside of Houston with 3 males to choose from.  The rest is history.

Murphy turned 5 in May.

[shelly]

Wow, Linda.  I don't know why, but I thought Murphy was younger, more of a puppy.  Glad you got 'the doodle'... lions are not very welcomed in America these days - lol..... and then there was Finn... :o)

[Suzann, Rosey & Bandit]

I just knew I didn't want a dog that shed!  So when I searched for that the doodles kept coming up and I fell in love with their cuteness.  We got the F1B because the risk of shedding was much lower...well then we just HAD to get one more!!

[Ali & Sonny D.]

Ro, after googling hypo allergenic dogs years ago, I wanted a Native American Indian Dog too!! I did tons of research (sick me liked the wolf part!!) but breeders were hard to come by. So further research led me too doodles. I LOVED the look of them. Met my friends Goldendoodle (you have heard my talk about Sonny's best friend/girlfriend Ruby) and I was smitten. And you know the rest from there!

[shelly]

Hey ali!  i never knew you wanted a NAID too!  The wolf 'look' actually enticed me too!  LOL