Sheepadoodle (All Sizes) Puppies

Two sizes of the same cross

The Sheepadoodle crosses an Old English Sheepdog with a Poodle, and because the Poodle comes in more than one size, so does the result. This page gathers the sizes we carry so you can weigh them against each other in one place instead of clicking back and forth.

A standard Sheepadoodle is built on a Standard Poodle parent and finishes as a large, strong, shaggy dog. A mini is built on a Miniature Poodle parent and keeps the same character in a frame that fits more households. Almost everything else — the coat, the temperament, the sense of humour — is shared, which makes this a practical decision about the shape of your life rather than a choice between two different dogs.

You can browse each size on its own page: standard Sheepadoodles and mini Sheepadoodles.

What the two parents bring

The Old English Sheepdog is not really a sheepdog in the border collie sense. It was a drover’s dog in the west of England, used to walk cattle and sheep along the roads to market — a job that wanted a big, weatherproof, good-natured animal with stamina rather than a fast, crouching herder. Drovers docked their dogs’ tails to show the animal was a working dog and exempt from tax, which is where the old nickname Bobtail comes from. The breed reached America in the 1880s and the American Kennel Club recognized it in 1888.

Two things made it famous. The first is the coat: profuse, shaggy, and grey, grizzle or blue merle over a white front and head. The second is the character. Old English Sheepdogs are clownish, sociable and physically demonstrative, and they lean on people rather than sitting politely beside them. They also have an unmistakable ambling walk and a deep, carrying bell of a voice.

The Poodle brings the other half. Its name comes from the German pudeln, to splash about, and the original job was retrieving birds out of cold water. It is one of the quickest studies in the dog world, and the curl in its single coat is what gives this cross its low-shedding reputation.

Put the two together and you get a shaggy dog with a sense of humour and a great deal more trainability than the outline suggests.

Standard or mini: how to choose

Start with the parts of your life the dog has to fit into, rather than with the picture in your head.

A standard is a substantial animal. Old English Sheepdogs are large, and this cross commonly reaches fifty-five to eighty pounds and stands around twenty to twenty-four inches, with individuals either side of that. Everything scales with it: the crate is bigger, the car has to take it, the food bill is larger, the grooming appointment costs more and runs longer, and leash manners are worth teaching early because a grown dog of that size can move you if it decides to. In exchange you get a big, warm, leaning dog with real presence and the stamina for long walks and proper hikes.

A mini, built on a Miniature Poodle parent, usually runs somewhere between about twenty-five and forty-five pounds. It is the practical option for a smaller home, an apartment with stairs, or anyone who would rather be able to lift the dog into the bath. It is not a low-energy dog and it is not a lapdog; it is the same busy, funny, sociable animal at a size that is simpler to move around.

Adult size in a crossbreed is an estimate rather than a promise, and littermates can finish at different points on the range. Ask us about a particular puppy’s parents and the range we would expect, and take the answer as a guide.

The coat, and the routine that keeps it easy

Both parents carry a lot of hair, and a Sheepadoodle coat is usually thick, wavy to curly, and low-shedding. Low-shedding means the hair stays in the coat rather than on the floor, and that is the trade: less vacuuming, more combing.

The routine that works is straightforward once it is a habit. Brush three or four times a week, working in sections right down to the skin, then follow the brush with a metal comb over the same ground — the comb is what tells you whether you actually got there. Give the extra minute behind the ears, in the armpits, around the collar and along the back legs, where the hair is longest and densest. A professional groom every six to eight weeks keeps the whole thing on rails.

Plenty of owners here keep a Sheepadoodle in a shorter clip, and it is a sensible choice rather than a compromise. A shorter coat cuts the daily work substantially and is more comfortable for the dog through a Florida or Tennessee summer. It does not remove the routine, since short hair still needs combing, but it turns a twenty-minute job into a five-minute one. A groomer who knows the coat type can suggest a length that suits the individual dog.

Keep the hair around the eyes trimmed, since both parents grow plenty of it. And start handling paws, ears and face in the first week the puppy is home, ten seconds at a time with a treat, so that the grooming table is never news.

Living with a Sheepadoodle

Colour is the first thing people ask about. The classic patchwork of black and white is what most of them picture, but litters also produce solid black, merle patterning, tan points, and a great deal more white. Markings are unpredictable in this cross, and two puppies from the same litter can look nothing like each other. Colour tells you nothing useful about temperament, so choose the dog rather than the pattern.

Character is remarkably consistent across both sizes. Sheepadoodles are sociable, funny and physically affectionate. They lean, they lie on feet, they follow you room to room, and they involve themselves in whatever is happening. With children they are usually excellent: the Old English Sheepdog side is famously good-humoured, and Poodle trainability makes the manners straightforward to install. With a standard it is worth teaching a settle early, simply because a dog that size arrives with some momentum behind it.

The drover inheritance shows up as leaning, bumping and a bit of shepherding movement around the house when things get lively. Redirect it early rather than letting it set: reward calm around running children, and teach the dog to go and fetch a toy when the energy comes up.

Both sizes want a good daily walk plus play and something to think about. Training games, puzzle feeders and new skills all land well, and a Sheepadoodle that has used its head settles more completely than one that has only walked. For a standard puppy, keep the exercise low-impact while it is still growing and feed a large-breed puppy formula. They will also let you know when someone is at the door — that carrying Old English Sheepdog voice comes through — and then go back to lying across the doorway.

Come and compare them

Standing next to both sizes for ten minutes settles the question faster than any amount of reading. The mini is bigger than people expect, the standard is heavier, and the coat feels quite different in the hand from how it looks in a photograph.

Our Sheepadoodle puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you what a particular puppy’s parents were like and roughly where we would expect it to finish. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit down with a puppy for as long as you like before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.