About Labradoodles
The Labradoodle breed started with a request. Over twenty years ago, a blind woman wanted a guide dog that wouldn't bother the allergies of her husband. Since Labradors are great working dogs, and great with families, and poodles are intelligent and allergy friendly, the breed made sense in theory. After some research and breeding by Tegan Park and Rutland Manor in Australia, the Australian Labradoodle was born. The idea caught on and the result is a wonderful, allergy and asthma friendly dog with excellent health and fantastic temperament and service qualities.
Just like any other breed that becomes popular, though, some breeders have started breeding for the popularity of these dogs and not for the benefit of the breed itself. So here's how to make sure you're getting the dog you want.
Researching for your Labradoodle:
Chances are, in your research, you'll come across terms like "Multi-Gen" (Labradoodle and Australian Labradoodle), "Early-Gen" or "F1" (Labradoodle Origin) and "Back Cross" or "F1B". Here are some helpful tips to understand what a breeder means when they are using these phrases.
The original multi-gen Australian Labradoodle, which is the original Labradoodle, has a foundation stock including 6 different parent breeds. These dogs were developed in Australian, and hence the "Australian" in the name of the dogs. The verified parent breeds by the ALA (Australian Labradoodle Association, Inc.) are: poodle (all three sizes), Labrador retriever, Irish water spaniel, curly coat retriever, American cocker spaniel and the English cocker spaniel. This was a breed that was developed with goals in mind for a low shedding service dog, not a designer dog.
The multi-gen Labradoodle has only poodle and lab in its heritage. It does not include the other parent breeds that were originally used by the creators of the breed. These have been primarily developed later in the U.S. and do not carry the Australian lines.
The early-gen F1 (Labradoodle origin) is a dog from a labrador/poodle mating that has not had the multiple generations of Labradoodle mated with another Labradoodle nor the addition of Australian Labradoodle foundation stock or multiple parent breeds. These dogs tend to shed their coat since they are more closely related to the Labrador and often have a wire hair look to them.
The "Back Cross" or "F1B" is a dog from an F1 (see above) mated back to a poodle usually for coat correction. These dogs have not had the multiple generations of Labradoodle mated with another Labradoodle nor the addition of Australian Labradoodle foundation stock or multiple parent breeds.
When you reserve an Australian Labradoodle from Alpen Ridge , you get the highest quality pup. Alpen Ridge breeding dogs have genuine Australian imported lines.
About Alpen Ridge
C. Sue Broady owns and runs Alpen Ridge Australian Labradoodles located in beautiful Central Oregon. Being careful to do what we can to make sure the breed is preserved, all our Australian Labradoodle breeding dogs are imported or have genuine Australian imported lines. For us, it's as much about the happiness and health of the dogs as it is about matching families with the perfect Australian Labradoodle.
I was raised on a horse ranch in Central Oregon being responsible for all breeding, record keeping and showing. I won several high point awards during my horse show career. This gave me a great base for recognizing desired conformation. I also took a genetics class in college which gave me a good foundation for understanding recessive and dominant genetics.
After getting married, I had Rottweilers from German lines. We showed once and won the class, but with small children and our business to manage, I decided showing was going to take more time than I wanted to take from my young family. I had Rottweilers for 17 years. After my last Rottie died at age 14, I started with Standard Poodles. I wanted to get away from the shedding, but still have the intelligence. The poodles were great and very tolerant of children. But there wasn't that "oh boy grandkids are here" attitude. I also wanted a dog that would have therapy potential.
I visited Australia in 2002 and met my first Australian Labradoodle, Rutland's Chalani. I was so impressed with this dog, that I knew I had found my breed. I started making plans to bring them over. My first dog was a daughter of Chalani. I later brought over 3 granddaughters and many others since then.
I have made six trips to Australia and have not only started with Australian dogs, but have continued to imported several dogs with the goal of providing some of the best Australian Labradoodle dogs and puppies in the U.S.A.