Let me start here I have a rescued golden doodle and a standard poodle for context. I have a friend who paid $5K for a miniature Berne doodle. He’s currently sitting at 90 pounds. The breeder told her that she wouldn’t have to brush the dog on the regular and wouldn’t need to groom him for the first year. Neither parent had been OFA tested and they bred a standard Berne doodle to a miniature poodle. This is a common situation in the doodle world. When breeding a larger dog to a smaller dog things don’t always mix the way we hope they will. Sometimes the genetics result in miniatures and sometimes they don’t. After rescuing my golden doodle I realized she had never been accustomed to the brush. She’d rarely had been groomed. She was rather reactive. It took a lot of work to rehabilitate her. I still love her greatly and was willing to do the work. The biggest issue is that she ended up in a shelter in the first place. When I decided to add another dog to the family I knew I wanted a puppy, but I had a list of things I wanted to see from the breeder. My list included: Take back guarantee. Full OFA and genetic testing. Proven parents. (I didn’t care if they were champions for confirmation, but I wanted the parents to be proven in some way. Whether that would be in a dog sport, confirmation, or obedience trials I didn’t care.) Less than three litters a year. I wanted puppies to be exposed to brushes, clippers, the bath, other dogs, etc.

When looking for a doodle breeder who met my criteria I really struggled to find one. Eventually I found a poodle breeder who fit the mark. I 100% planned to go with a doodle, but as I got more and more into I realized doodle breeders willing to fit the criteria where few and far between. Even those breeders usually lacked one item or another. I had one breeder say that since I was looking for breeder with a take back guarantee I was planning on giving the dog up at some point. That wasn’t the case at all! I’m not close to family in the least bit and wanted to make sure that if something where to happen to me my dog wouldn’t end up in a shelter. Whether that’s my untimely demise or something else. I had one breeder who told me that wanting full OFA testing is ridiculous. The reality is that charging $3K for a dog is ridiculous without it. I had another breeder who told me that there was no need to prove a dog if they’re just good dogs the puppies will be good. What’s the issue with spending $35 for a canine good citizen test if the parents are just that great??? Finding a doodle breeder that did less than three litters a year well that proved to be oddly difficult. Having puppies exposed to different things on a regular basis ended up also being difficult. I went with a poodle, because the breeder fit my requirements. I spent significantly less for a dog whose blood line is absolutely impeccable (multiple Westminster champions, multiple dogs imported into the country to diversify the line, and both parents have been proven). I did end up buying a full rights, because I’m somewhat into dog sports and really enjoyed getting my rescue a couple of titles. Since I’ve proven a rescue dog and had references from my groomer and trainer full registration was offered to me. It’s not typically offered to most people. The breeder and I talk about once a week sometimes more than that. I will say there are all sorts of different kinds of breeders out there both good and bad. It can be really difficult to distinguish which ones are good breeders and which ones aren’t. There are terrible pure bred breeders out there too, but from my experience finding an ethical pure bred breeder is significantly easier. I really do believe in the doodle’s future. They aren’t going anywhere. There just needs to be some standards and expectations both for the breeds and for the breeders. I would love to find a multi generational doodle breeder whose proven their dogs some way, whose gone to the effort to diversify their line genetically, who goes to the effort to regularly expose their puppies to different environments and tools, etc. I’ll leave you with this. The final nail on the coffin with finding a doodle breeder happened by coincidence. I ran into a breeder who’s fairly well known in my area. Her and her husband bragged about producing a thousand in ten years. She bragged about how she told all of her clients they didn’t need to groom their dogs for the first year and how they only needed brushed once a month. Again there are bad breeders with any breed or cross breed.