The Creator of the Labradoodle Says He Regrets Breeding the Dogs
He called the breed a "Frankenstein monster."
Wally Conron is the original creator of the Labradoodle. AKA, he was the first to crossbreed the dog and give it a name. And last week, on a podcast, he dished about how the breed came to be.
He was breeding dogs in the 80s in Australia when a woman from Hawaii called him and said that she needed a service dog for here husband, but that he was allergic and it couldn't be a lab (the standard for service dogs at the time).
Wally entertained the idea of cross-breeding a lab with a hypo-allergenic dog, and that's how we got the Labradoodle. They're not technically hypoallergenic, but a lot people with allergies can tolerate the breed.
Of course, as most things do, the breeding fell into the hands of puppy mills and the dogs became a novelty item. Now, a good amount of Labradoodles have genetic health problems and some of them are terribly behaved.
He says he regrets it because "I released the reason for these unethical, ruthless people to breed these dogs and sell them for big bucks."
Do you have a Labradoodle? Is yours one of the good ones?