Labradoodle? More like Labradon'tle
Kat Eschner's weekly newsletter about animal-human relationships Vol. 3 Iss. 9
This week’s edition of CREATURE FEATURE is brought to you by the loud guy I heard earlier this week explaining to his girlfriend that what she was looking at was a “partly albino pigeon.” It was not. It was just a regular pigeon going about its grotty regular pigeon business. They come in many colors. Don’t be that guy. Join me in learning more about the history of pigeons.
Image: A labradoodle lies on a mossy wooden bench looking sheepish. Credit: litthouse/pixabay
Essay question: Labradoodles
Labradoodles, a cross between a lab and a poodle , first came on the scene in the late 1980s. They were bred to be guide dogs who made people sneeze less, the Labrador Retriever being an excellent guide dog while the poodle doesn’t shed much. In the years since, the Australian dog breeder who created the labradoodles has concluded he made a terrible mistake.
While Sultan, one of the first labradoodles he bred, went on to be a guide dog for 10 years, the other two puppies from that first litter were hard to adopt out, because potential dog owners thought they looked so weird. As Fiona Peper tells it for ABC, the labradoodle only took off when they started calling it a “labradoodle". Before that, it as just a mutt:
The reason the labradoodle took off was fairly straightforward, according to Jessica Hekman from the Broad Institute in Boston, who researches dog behaviour and genetics.
"A lot of the way that we think about dogs is the story that we can tell about the dogs that we've got," Dr Hekman explains.
"Having the story, 'well this dog is just a mix of a couple of different things' — it didn't used to be a good story.
"So when you start attaching cool names, then it starts turning into a new, cool story."
But as labradoodle originator Wally Conron tells it, other breeders horned in on the labradoodle craze and started mixing dogs with no regard for their temperment or other genetic issues. Even though Sultan served his purpose, Conron is full of regret for starting the doodle craze. “I opened a Pandora box and released a Frankenstein monster,” he told the ABC.
Okay, for starters, the real monster WAS IN FACT Doctor Frankenstein. Suck on that, Wally Conron. Pedantry aside, though, today labradoodles are a popular family pet. I dogsit a friend’s labradoodle from time to time—she is exciteable but very sweet, and Zelda is inexplicably fond of her.
Sure, unethical dog breeders can breed dogs who have health issues and don’t fit well with people. But the broader point I wanted to make here was about dog breeding generally. Dogs are framed as our friends! It is weird that we breed our friends! We don’t breed our human friends!
Speaking about labradoodles, "I find that the biggest majority are either crazy or have a hereditary problem,” Conron said. “I do see some damn nice labradoodles but they're few and far between."
To the extent that dogs are a tool for people—as with guide dogs—I really see the argument for breeding traits. But as I’ve written about before, dog breeding in general is weird. The labradoodle’s weirdness is just a subset of that.
Roundup
More things I’ve read this week.
Dog-hitting Youtuber not charged
The animals in natural history museums are nearly all dudes
Credit: BBC America
Fiction
“I can get it for way less on Amazon.”
Cursed Object — Dorothy Gambrell
Cat and Girl, the webcomic this strip is part of, is one of my favorites. Like Bloom County, it has been reenergized by a Trump presidency. Perhaps the only good things to come out of a Trump presidency. It’s been a weird time to be in New York, these past two weeks.
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