Jan 28 2008
Labradoodles
Have you ever seen a Labradoodle? I met my first one in October last year and I don’t think I’ve seen a more skittish dog. When the owner told me it was a Labradoodle, I assumed she said Labra poodle. The shaggy black thing had that nervous haunted look around the eye that you associate with a dog about to leap into the middle of a busy freeway. If it had been a horse it would have bolted.
They are used for Guide Dogs apparently, bloody hell, I wouldn’t want to trust my life to a neurotic pooch.
I’m on the lookout for a dog. My two old cats have both used up their full quota of 9 lives and are about to cross over to the great feline heaven where they can lie around nibbling on tuna steaks all day. Very sad, they have both been with me for a long time, one of them for 17 years and the other for 16. (As I write this one of them has been lying, pretty well motionless in his basket, only drinking water for the last 2 days)
When they have both given up the ghost I will get myself a dog .. not too big, think of the pet-food bills, with a sizeable bark to scare off any passing axe murderer who may be skulking down my sideway at 3.00 am, good-natured enough to tolerate the small children who descend on my house at regular intervals and eager to accompany me on my walks along the creek.
But back to the Labradoodles. They were bred only 20 years ago, by crossing the Labrador Retriever and the Standard Poodle for Guide Dogs Victoria. They are poodles!
The very first Labradoodle was ‘Sultan’ and he was sent off to Hawaii where he became a successful Guide Dog, and reported to be still working at the age of ten years.
They were first exported to America in 1998, the Oxford English Dictionary lists “Labradoodle” as a word, and the Monopoly board game includes a Labradoodle icon in its Australian Monopoly editions.
Their popularity has been used to good effect, with New York department store Lord and Taylor raising thousands of dollars for Guiding Eyes for the Blind selling Labradoodle plush toys, and Macy’s department store raising funds with plush Labradoodles “Grace” and “Courage” for Breast Cancer Awareness in 2006.
Some labradoodle owners include Sir Donald Campbell, Tiger Woods, Henry Winkler and Barbara Eden who named her Labradoodle Djinn Djinn after her invisible dog in the TV show I Dream of Jeannie.
Maybe the one I met was a ring-in. A labradoodle who didn’t come up to par. In any case, I don’t want one.
Like to shout me a cold beer?
