Like Obama, I have a kid with allergies, and we would like to get a dog. I notice the Obamas have been ground down by politics from their original plan of getting a poodle or a portugese water dog or other hypoallegenic type pure bred, to hoping for a pound whoodle, or labradoodle or some such thing.
So 4 questions
Are these various mixes really hypoallergenic? Are some, such as whoodles (Wheaton Terrier / Poodle crosses) more hypoallergenic than other crosses?
Are they as prone to disease as poodles and other purebreds?
Can they reliably be gotten from a pound, if you’re not an Obama?
Where would I begin to find a reliable breeder? (extra points for Canada, double plus points for BC)
Thanks for any help.
(Incidental note. I personally am in favour of getting a big poodle. Steinbeck had one, Churchill had one, obviously, this is a manly man’s dog. I’d call it a caniche, which is apparently the french word for poodle, and I’d mispronounce it horribly with a thick Quebecoise accent and convince everyone it was an impossibly rare breed. Curiously, this plan has not met with approval from the rest of the Attack clan)
I expect as far as allergies go it would be totally unpredicatable what you’d get; you’d better hope you’ve got a dog with more of the poodle than the lab or whatever the other one is. Especially a lab. Labs are awesome wonderful dogs but oy, the hair and dander.
I’d go for an actual poodle too. Standard poodles are excellent dogs. And it’s not like the President couldn’t afford to keep a poodle groomed nicely (no, I’m not talking show cuts, but poodles do need upkeep no matter what cut you have them in). There must be plenty of poodles out there looking for homes and I don’t see even the weirdest pickiest rescue turning down the Obamas.
Healthwise, I dunno. I expect a lot would depend on the parents. And I have to wonder about a lot of the breeders who pretend that their doodles are actual breeds and not just cute names for crosses.
There are no hypoallergenic dogs at all, just dogs that individual allergy suffers can tolerate. The mixes are more of a gamble than a purebred because you wouldn’t know what traits each pup was going to get from each parent. The only way you could know if your child is going to be allergic to a mix would be to have the child interact with an adult, but I supose you want a pup
The designer mixes tend to be very prone to genetic problems because the people breeding them aren’t bothering to do any health checks on the parents. They also don’t tend to know anything about the dogs in the pedigrees of the parents, so they don’t have the data needed to predict incidence. And, designer mixes tend to be from low quality purebreds to begin with, since responsible breeders of Poodles and Wheatens wouldn’t want to sell a well bred pup to someone who is going to crank out mixed breeds for no reason other than profit.
Obama isn’t going to be able to even. A vast majority of shelters mis-indentify dogs as being purebred when they aren’t, and these days they call anything that even vaguely looks like some popular designer breed by that name. They do this because a dog that is believed to be purebred or of a designer breed is far more likely to be adopted than a “Lab cross” or worse yet, “unknown mix”.
For a whoodle? I’d be surprised if you could. The things to look for would be if the breeder has done at least OFA hips and CERF eyes, they should offer a guarantee that covers any genetic health issues the pup may come up with, the pups should be raised in the house with plenty of human interaction and have had at least one shot and one worming. You should be able to meet the mother, and the father if he lives on site, and the pups should look alert, happy, active and bright eyed. Most designer breeds are puppy milled tho, so you may not have much luck.
Bummer! A well bred Poodle is a fantastic pet, and one of the breeds less likely to bother allergies. If you can talk the family into any purebred, go visit breeders and have the allergic kid interact with the adults of that breed. No reactions, you are probably safe getting a pup of that breed.
The wiki on hypoallergenic dog breeds is interesting. Apparently, there are no truly hypoallergenic dog breeds, and the whole thing is marketing on the part of breeders.
Of course this is right but some (pure) breeds are definitely better that others for allergy/asthma sufferers. Marcus Junior was almost completely unaffected by our black Standard Schnauzer but ended up with eyes streaming, sneezing, and wheezing after five minutes with the in-laws’ Golden Retriever.
Having lost our mad Schnauzer to lymphoma a few months back we are now in the same position as Attack. Mrs Marcus and I like the idea of a sensibly groomed poodle - Marcus Junior sees them as poncy show dogs :dubious: Amazingly Miss Marcus is restraining herself from comment.
Clearly, I need to do some Standard Poodle Propaganda here.
This is not a froofy pretty boy dog. It’s perfectly happy getting its nose dirty
But you have to realize that this is not a small dog, either.
… though the dog may not realize it’s not a lap dog. In fact, I have yet to own one that is not completely sure it is one.
Even as a puppy, they’re smart enough to know what you’ve done.
And judge you on it.
They get along great with other dogs, though.
And they’re fantastic with children.
Sometimes, they’re a little too helpful, they do tend to try to get their noses into your business.
I’ve got a good breeder in the Northeast, if you’re interested.
But the important thing here is that you stay happy with your dog… and your dog stays happy with you.
Every single standard poodle I’ve met has been a sweetheart and very, very smart. I’ve never met one with those ridiculous haircuts; they’ve all had a nice clip all over. Nice dogs. I too, defend the poodle.
IMO standard poodles don’t enjoy a better rep simply because so many “poodle people” are downright daffy!
If I were not such a fan of goldens, my second choice for a dog would be a poodle. No other dog moves quite like a poodle. Beautiful.
My experience has been similar to those above - goldendoodles run the gamut in terms of shedding. The other day I met someone with a schnoodle - schnauzer/poodle. Now that shouldn’t shed at all.
But like I said, I’m a golden fan, as the tumbleweeds of hair blowing through my house attest.
I would strongly recommend checking with Poodle breed rescues (many breed-specific rescues also take in mixes with that breed) and websites like http://www.petfinder.com over getting a dog from a breeder. Poodles are popular dogs, which unfortunately means there are plenty of them that wind up homeless too.
We’re on our second standard poodle (the first passed last year at age 13, this one is only a year old. Standard poodle people are not daffy. Miniature and (especially) toy poodle people are daffy.
One of the main problems with standards is that they need a lot of exercise. People who get them thinking they’re getting a big house dog are going to be disappointed.
My comment was largely based on one of my wife’s friends who had 3 standards she was clicker training for obedience trials. Knowing her, and talking with her about other poodle breeders/trainers she interacted with.
Man, were her poor dogs neurotic messes! She asked me to come over and interact with her dogs, because they were afraid of men but seemed so good around me. Gee - I wonder why that was? Maybe because I treated them like DOGS? Maybe for whatever reason they weren’t working out as she hoped in obedience trials (tho poodles are WICKED smart!). But if she had just let them be pets and companions, they would have been incredible - as well as stunningly handsome. Instead, the poor dogs were wearing diapers, with their stupid owner clicking a clicker every couple of seconds for whatever reason! :rolleyes:
Especially remember her big charcoal male - Bruno. Man, that would have been an awesome dog, if only she had let him be one.
Currently know one woman who has a lovely chocolate male she got as a rescue, and another woman with a white one. IMO neither of them fully appreciates what training/direction the dogs need. Like I said, they are wicked smart, and IMO you have to let them know you are top dog or they will readily assume the vacant position. . .
To counteract the girly image Poodles have been unfairly given: I know a guy out here who has a Standard Poodle for his hunting dog, and he loves him. He says the dog does better as a retriever than any other breed he’s ever had and was far easier to train, too. The dog’s fur is kept clipped short, but he’s still immediately recognizable as a Poodle. He’s just like any other working dog I’ve met, though somewhat nicer and better trained than some.
Poodles are fantastic and I’ve had positive interactions with most of the Standards I’ve known. They do need to be kept active, though. This is a breed with a lot of energy and a very…creative mind for getting into trouble.
Well. I have known all these people in that movie from when my uncle was showing his Kerry Blues. Not the actors, the characters.
And some normal people, too. But… the fur baby types… yeah.
Having met at least a dozen “hypoallergenic” dogs, I still have yet to meet a dog advertised as such which I didn’t react to. To be fair, I didn’t have any of the usual dander problems with a couple of them, but I still reacted to their saliva.
There are only three dogs I’ve ever not reacted to at all - a Shi Tzu/Terrier/Something Else mix, and two Norfolk Terriers which were from the same litter.
Nice shots, longPath. I picked mine to show the size of the dog, and to show what they look like without the poofy do. As a show-er, any comments about the two dogs in my pics?
Hamish is a bit wee mad. And congrats on the best-non-sporting.
I see he’s got the pointy nose. Are yours heavily paw-centric? My Kensington loves frisbee, but she tends to catch it like a football. Both paws to the chest, grab it in midair after.
Well, a first-generation cross between two purebreds won’t be a gamble at all: The dog will show whichever of the parents’ traits is dominant in each case. But if you cross two “designer breeds”, even of the same type, then yes, you can get anything from pure one breed to pure the other or anything in between. And if you’re just dealing with a stray of unknown parentage that the pound is calling a labradoodle or whatever, you’ve got even more of a gamble, since there could be any given breed in there somewhere.
