Regretting The Labradoodle

The man who ‘created’ the Labradoodle is now wishing he hadn’t…

In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Wally Conron, the man who created the Labradoodle breed, has admitted he has his regrets about creating the dog that has since become wildly popular.

It all started, according to the interview, when Conron (who was then working as breeding manager for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia) was asked to breed a hypo-allergenic guide dog for a woman in Hawaii whose husband was allergic to dogs that shed.

After a series of failed attempts, Conron finally succeeded by orchestrating the now-famous cross between a standard Poodle and a Labrador. At first, he says, no-one was interested in buying the cross-breeds, but with a clever marketing campaign that saw the breed affixed with the quirky moniker ‘Labradoodle’, it quickly became the designer dog to purchase and spurred an apparently endless list of other crosses with equally bizarre names.

Not proud

Despite the popularity of the Labradoodle and the way it has helped people through the Guide Dog Association, Conron insists he isn’t proud of his contribution.

‘All these backyard breeders have jumped on the bandwagon and they’re crossing any kind of dog with a poodle,’ says the now 81-year old. ‘They’re selling them for more than a pure-bred is worth and they’re not going into the backgrounds of the parents of the dogs. There are so many poodle crosses having fits, problems with their eyes, hips and elbows; a lot have epilepsy. There are a few ethical breeders, but very, very few.’

It seems that best laid plans and good intentions are no match for irresponsible people who will seek to compromise the health and integrity of a breed to make a quick buck.

‘I released a Frankenstein,’ Conron claims. ‘People say, “Aren’t you proud of yourself?” and I say, “Not in the slightest. I’ve done so much harm to pure breeding.”’

• What do you think? Which breeds do you think were a mistake in hindsight? Should humans stay out of designing new breeds?

Image Sourced from: Ask Spike Online