The Australian Labradoodle has an interesting and sometimes controversial history.

Wally Conron, the puppy-breeding manager at the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia, is credited with “creating” the Labradoodle breed in response to a request from a blind woman in Hawaii whose husband was allergic to dog hair. When possible Poodle matches proved unsuccessful, he hit upon the idea of crossing a Poodle with a Labrador Retriever. When his attempt to find foster homes to raise and socialize the three “cross-breed” puppies from his first Lab-Poodle cross met with negative responses from potential puppy parents who preferred to wait for a purebred, he coined the term “Labradoodle” to try to get around the prejudice. This proved amazingly successful, and soon people from around the world were inquiring about this allergy-free “wonderdog.” (Wally has since confessed that he sometimes wishes he hadn’t created the Labradoodle, given the rise in numerous different Poodle crosses with other breeds to create “designer dogs,” with the breeding often done in an irresponsible fashion, driven by profit rather than a desire to improve a breed.) Wally told his story in a Reader’s Digest Australia article printed in 2007, entitled “My Story: I designed a dog.”

According to the Australian Labradoodle Association (ALA), an unnamed man who bred dogs for pet shops subsequently began to breed Labradoodles, including back-crossing (a Labradoodle to a Poodle) and like mating (Labradoodle to Labradoodle). His goal was simply to breed great family pets, so he did not recognize or strive to develop the allergy-friendly nature of the Labradoodle. Likewise, the Australian Guide Dog Association did not recognize the allergy-friendly characteristics of the breed, and soon abandoned this type of cross. (source)

Nevertheless, the Labradoodle’s friendly disposition, intelligence, and charm soon became widely known and won over many people, including dog trainers. In response, two breeders in Australia, Rutland Manor and Tegan Park, began to breed Labradoodles to respond to the interest in and desire for the dog. These two breeders devoted great energy and time into further development of the breed, selecting the best puppies with the most allergy-friendly coats, gentlest temperaments, and best looks to use for further breeding.

The Rutland Manor and Tegan Park lines can now be found to a greater or lesser extent in the pedigrees of a high proportion of Australian Labradoodles in North American. (Source –research on the ALAA dog database.)

In the late 1990s and early 21st century, other breeders in Australia began Labradoodle breeding programs. Two noteworthy programs are those of Sunset Hills and Cloudcatcher. Cloudcatcher’s website indicates that its main goal is “to develop completely new unrelated bloodlines to strengthen and further contribute to the genetic diversity of Australian Labradoodles.” For its part, Sunset Hills defines its main goal as being “in providing beautiful, conformationally correct, healthy, genetically sound, well rounded, excellent temperamented, allergy and asthma friendly dogs to families and breeders throughout Australia and around the world.” Like Cloudcatcher, Sunset Hills notes that it has dedicated a portion of its breeding program to developing new foundation stock bloodlines in order to achieve the necessary wide and diverse genetic pool of this developing breed. Dogs from both these breeders have been and continue to be widely imported into Canada, the United States, and Europe, and form part of the Australian foundation stock for the multigenerational Australian Labrdoodles being bred in North America and Europe.

It soon became apparent that a breed association was needed to introduce standards for the developing breed, regulate breeding practices, certify members, maintain a database of breeding (un-neutered) dogs and their progeny, and bring together breeders in a common goal. To this end, the Labradoodle Association of Australian (LAA) was formed in 1998 (source: personal correspondence with the ALA secretary) and officially incorporated in 2000 (source). The club collapsed within a few years due to lack of support, but was reformed in 2003 with Sunset Hills, Cloudcatcher, and other Australian breeders as founding members (source: personal correspondence with the ALA secretary).

The early Australian breeders found that first-generation Poodle and Lab crosses did not consistently produce non-shedding coats. In response, they used different strategies in an attempt to obtain the best coat consistency, as well as good temperament and conformation. These included introducing several other breeds into the blood lines. The Irish Water Spaniel was introduced in order to bring in the rich chocolate colour without losing the allergy-friendly coat. The Curly Coated Retriever was used to bring in some positive retriever qualities, however, it also resulted in some negatives such as an “open face” (shorter hair on the face and muzzle) and a certain aloofness, so this infusion was discontinued. Finally, English and American Cocker Spaniel bloodlines were introduced in order to help maintain the stockiness in the miniature sized Labradoodle, a trait that was being lost by using miniature poodles, with their more delicate features, to develop the miniature size (source). These are the only six parent breeds recognized in Australia.

As interest in the Labradoodle spread around the world, other breeding programs were established in Canada, the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. The International Labradoodle Association (ILA) was incorporated in Hawaii in January 2004 as an American counterpart to the Labradoodle Association of Australia. A year later, in 2005, the American and Australian bodies united to form the International Australian Labradoodle Association (IALA) to help coordinate breeders and breeding practices around the world and ensure the regulated development of the breed. The IALA is an umbrella association coordinating the work of separate national or continental sister associations. Under the IALA, the Australian body was renamed the Australian Labradoodle Association (ALA) and the North American body was renamed the Australian Labradoodle Association of America (ALAA). Also in 2005, the Australian Labradoodle Association of Europe (ALAEu) was formed and joined the IALA umbrella. (source).

As of February 2011, the ALAA lists 143 breeder members, including 23 in Canada (Ontario – 6; British Columbia – 7; Alberta – 10) (source). For its part, the ALAEu has 30 breeder members, mostly in the Netherlands (31), as well as in the UK (5), Austria, Belgium, Finland, and Poland (1 each) (source). In Australia, the ALA lists 12 accredited breeder members (source). Cloudcatcher and Sunset Hills are not listed as accredited members, as the original owners recently sold their breeding practices and the new owners must apply for accreditation on their own. (source: personal correspondence with the ALA secretary).

The ALAA recognizes only Labrador Retriever, Poodle and Cocker Spaniel (English or American) as parent breeds for the Australian Labradoodle. DNA evidence has found a very small presence of the other three parent breeds used in Australia (source). Dogs coming from Australia with these breeds in their background are accepted as Australian Labradoodles, but new infusions being done in North America must use only the three ALAA-recognized parent breeds. Dogs that are Labrador Retriever-Poodle crosses, with no Cocker Spaniel, are known as simply Labradoodles (as opposed to Australian Labradoodles), and are primarily first- and second-generation.

One of the goals of the various Australian Labradoodle associations is recognition of the Australian Labradoodle as a unique pure breed. For more information on this process, see our Breed Development page.