Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Careful Goldendoodle Breeders For Your Next Pet

By Elizabeth Wood


Crossbreed dogs, also called designer breed or hybrid, seem to be increasing in popularity. The crossbreed goldendoodle is the result of breeding a golden retriever and a poodle. Prospective pet owners should choose their goldendoodle breeders carefully and avoid so called puppy farms. The temperaments and health of the parent dogs is important to produce a good litter. Once they are born, the home environment for the puppies is important. Puppies who spend their first few weeks of life in a loving home environment, tend to have fewer behavior issues than kennel raised puppies.

The retriever half of this crossbreed is a fairly consistently sized animal weighing in at fifty five to eighty pounds. The poodle half of the breed comes in many sizes. There are toy, miniature and standard poodles. The weight range from toy to standard is as little as six pounds to as much as sixty pounds. The size of a goldendoodle will be dependent on the size of both parents.

Responsible breeders will screen the health of the parent dogs to make sure there are no known health problems. Dogs with known health issues will not be used for breeding. Breeders will do their best to match parent dogs in size, but the size of the adult offspring is not entirely predictable.

Matching the parent dogs in size as closely as possible is helpful, yet there are no guarantees. One photo shows two goldendoodle pets standing side by side. The small one weighs 30 pounds, while the large one weighs 54 pounds. The height difference is pretty remarkable also. Many prospective pet owners would be happy with a dog in this weight range. But if size is a deal breaker, work with the breeder who will make every effort to get within the desired weight range.

Breeders have designations that describe the ancestry of the dog. An F1 goldendoodle is the first generation where one parent was a golden retriever and the other was a poodle. The heritage of these puppies is fifty percent retriever and fifty percent poodle. The coat on F1s is unpredictable. It may be straight, wavy or curly. The curly coat, like its poodle parent, is almost non shedding. For this reason, curly is often the preferred coat.

When an F1 is bred with another F1, the dog is called an F2. For some reason this combination is more unpredictable, and some breeders will not use two F1s when breeding. If you are looking for your best chance at a non shedding pet, the F1B may be your best shot. The parentage with an F1B is an F1 bred with a poodle. This combination increases the poodle mix to seventy five percent, with the retriever now at twenty five percent.

One advantage of a non shedding or light shedding coat is that the owners will not have to constantly deal with dog hair all over their house and clothes. The other advantage is that non shedding pets are preferred by people with allergies. Non and light shedding pet produce less allergens.

This crossbreed can weigh 15 to 45 pounds, and on occasion more. They come in a wide variety of colors. Cream is the most often seen color coat, but the coat can also be grey, apricot, copper, red or black. Goldendoodles have a tendency to lighten with age. With a responsible breeder you will have a loving and loyal pet that will be part of your family for years.




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