First Groom - AFTER (not a fan of the bows)

Comment

Comment by Kim, Abby & Beckett on March 12, 2012 at 5:06pm

In my experience, F1Bs are always on the curly side with wool like hair. My friends have two of them and both are woolly and curly. They usually have to shave their dogs once a year because the hair gets mat and can't easily be untangled. That is a problem with most doodles though. You have to brush them regularly if you don't want them to mat.

If you want wavy hair, F1s are the way to go. That is the generation that most times ends up with wavy hair. As for size, there are small F1s. You just have to find a breeder using mini-poodles. Both of Abby's parents are around 60-65 pounds. Abby is 6 months and 36 pounds. However, my friend who has Abby's sister/liter-mate has a 50 pound girl. It is really hard to tell, especially since large breed dogs can take up to 2 years to fully develop and grow. The rule of them is double the weight at 4 months, give or take 5 pounds. At that rate, Abby will be around 50 pounds (which is fine with me). Even my vet thinks she will be on the smaller side. I am ok with anything because I love her, her look and her personality! 

A good breeder site to look at is www.mcdoodles.com. You will find a lot of information there. And the breeder, Kelly, is good at answering any questions you email. They also have a message board where owners post information too. I hope that helps. Good luck with your search and finding a pet friendly apartment.

Comment by Jess & Stewart on March 12, 2012 at 4:54pm

That's ok. At first I was leaning more towards an F1B because I ideally want a smaller dog, around 20-15 lbs, but I love the shaggy look and I'm afraid of getting a curly F1B instead of wavy. I am 3rd pick for the next litter, which I may decline as I'm not in a pet friendly place yet, so I hope to be able get pick of the litter and get a wavy doodle. The mom is an F1 who is a perfect wavy and the dad is a mini poodle, so I'm hoping there will be some wavy puppy coats in there. Thankfully though I'll have at least 1 litter to compare to!

I'm still not sure if I should switch to an F1 and forego a smaller size for the looks...any suggestions? And googling pictures of wavy F1B's doesn't give much results unfortunately.

Comment by Kim, Abby & Beckett on March 12, 2012 at 4:45pm

I am afraid I can't give you exact measurements. Abby's adult coat is coming in down her spine. So she had hair that was an inch - inch and a half coming through. I told the groomer to cut the puppy coat on the side, that was 3 or 4 inches long down to match the puppy coat. As for the legs, it's called a teddy bear cut and it is usually cut an inch or so longer than the body. After that, I told the groomer no poodle do, don't touch the tail, leave her eyebrows, but trim the head (no poofy poodle crown) and beard (which was getting really long). So that photo is what she looked like when I got her home. I immediately ditched the bows. Also, she was blown out, so it made her hair look really straight (it is not, it is more wavy). I suggest using Google to find groomed photos that look similar to your dog and taking those in to explain.

I hope that helps. I was really worried about Abby coming back shaved or looking like a poodle/bad. I basically just had her shaped/trimmed. The legs and body were the the clippers. The head and face were scissor cut.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Comment by Jess & Stewart on March 11, 2012 at 8:12pm

Hi Kim and Abby!

I'm new to Doodle Kisses and will hopefully be getting my doodle around this time next year, depending on timing. I just graduated college in May, got a job (thankfully) and am definitely ready for my own puppy, which I will raise on my own, however I still need to be in a pet friendly apt!

I have to be frank, I can't believe the difference between some of the before/after pics of doodles being groomed, I love the shaggy look and cant believe when they all look like poodles!

I love Abby's after picture though! Would you mind telling me how long she was before and then how long they kept her? Did you get her scissored? I imagine I'd want to keep a dog around 2-2 1/2 inches, so they would still have that shaggy look, but almost look like they were just trimmed back to a shorter cut, when the puppy cut started growing out. Does that make sense?

Any advice you could give would be great!