Goldendoodle Puppies

Two water dogs, one cross

Both sides of a Goldendoodle were built to fetch things out of cold water, which is not the first thing that comes to mind when one bounces up to you on a sidewalk.

The Golden Retriever was made in the Scottish Highlands in the second half of the nineteenth century. Lord Tweedmouth kept careful records at his Guisachan estate, and they show a yellow retriever called Nous bred to a Tweed Water Spaniel called Belle in 1868. What came out of those litters was steady, soft-mouthed and biddable, and it was meant for a long day on a wet hill.

The Poodle is older and German, and the name gives the job away: Pudel, from a verb meaning to splash. It was a water retriever before it was anything else. Even the famous clip is working kit — the coat was left long over the chest and the joints and taken off everywhere else so the dog could swim without dragging half a pond behind it. France took the breed up so thoroughly that most people now assume it started there.

The Goldendoodle itself is recent. The cross took hold in North America through the 1990s, a few years behind the Labradoodle, and it caught on quickly with people who liked the Golden’s manner and the Poodle’s coat. No kennel club recognizes it as a breed, so there is no written standard setting out what a Goldendoodle is supposed to look like.

Why no two of them match

That missing standard is the single most useful thing to understand about the cross, because it is the reason littermates come out different from one another. Breed two established breeds together and you get a range rather than a type, and the range covers coat, size, colour and outline all at once.

The vocabulary breeders use for this is worth knowing. An F1 is a Golden Retriever bred to a Poodle — the first cross, and the most variable, with straight, wavy and curly coats often turning up in the same litter. An F1b is an F1 bred back to a Poodle, which tips the odds toward the curl. Later generations, doodle bred to doodle, settle down somewhat but never entirely.

So ask which generation a puppy comes from and what its parents looked like. It will tell you more about the adult dog you are going to live with than any general description of the cross, including this one.

Sizes that follow the Poodle side

Poodles come in three sizes, and that is where a Goldendoodle’s eventual size mostly comes from. A puppy out of a Standard Poodle grows into a proper big dog, knee-high at the shoulder and heavy enough to shift you along the sofa when it decides to join you. One out of a Miniature Poodle finishes considerably smaller, in the range where you can still pick it up with one arm. Crosses out of Toy Poodles are smaller again.

Because the Golden side is consistent in size and the Poodle side is not, the parents are the guide rather than any chart. Our team can tell you what a particular puppy’s mother and father were, and that is the number worth having.

Straight, wavy or curly, and almost any colour

Three coat types turn up. Straight coats look most like a Golden Retriever and lie flat along the body. Wavy coats — sometimes called shaggy or fleece — are the middle ground and the most common of the three. Curly coats sit closest to the Poodle, tight and springy under the hand.

The other Poodle inheritance is furnishings: the beard, the moustache and the long eyebrows that give a doodle its face. Some puppies do not get them and grow up looking much more like a Golden Retriever with a wave in it. Both are correct, because there is nothing here to be correct about.

Colours run from cream through apricot, gold and red to chocolate and black, with parti-colours — white with patches — and plenty of dogs carrying a white chest or white toes. Red and apricot puppies often lighten as they grow, which comes down from the Poodle side, so the deep colour in the eight-week photograph is not necessarily the colour of the adult.

The coat changes texture once, somewhere between about eight months and eighteen months, as the puppy coat gives way to the adult one. It usually comes in a little tighter and a little denser than what you started with. The routine changes with it, and a groomer who knows doodle coats will tell you when it is happening.

The grooming routine

A curly or wavy coat grows the way hair does rather than dropping out, which means most of the loose hair stays in the coat until you take it out. That is the whole logic of the routine, and once it is a habit it takes very little time.

Comb rather than brush, and comb in sections right down to the skin, because a slicker run over the top of a coat like this only tidies the surface. Three or four sessions a week keeps it easy, and the places that want the most attention are behind the ears, under the front legs, in the armpits of the back legs and along the tail. Most doodles settle onto their side and doze once the rhythm starts.

Then a groomer every six to eight weeks. The most useful thing you can do at the first appointment is pick a length and stay with it, because a coat kept at a consistent, comfortable length is a coat that never becomes a project. Keep the hair around the eyes short so the dog can see out, ears wiped as part of the same session, nails a little and often, and teeth brushed from the first week so a puppy decides the toothbrush is a game.

Temperament, and what a day looks like

Both parent breeds were selected for wanting to work alongside a person, and that is what comes through most strongly in the cross. A Goldendoodle wants to be where you are, takes a close interest in what you are doing, and is generally delighted to meet whoever has come to the door. Both parent breeds also turn up regularly in service and therapy work, which tells you something about the temperament people have been breeding toward for a long time.

They are quick. Poodles are among the most trainable dogs in the world and Goldens are not far behind, and a Goldendoodle puppy will have your household routine worked out inside a fortnight. Keep training short, cheerful and well paid, ask for one thing at a time, and stop while the dog still wants another go. Retrieving is in both lines, so fetch is usually the easiest game to start and the one that does the most for the dog.

A day looks like a proper walk in the morning, something to think about in the middle of it — a food puzzle, a scatter of kibble in the grass, five minutes learning a new trick — and a second walk in the evening. In a Florida or Tennessee summer the early and late hours are the pleasant ones for both of you, with shade and water in between. Water in general goes down well, given the family history, and a shallow paddling pool in the yard will occupy a Goldendoodle for an entire afternoon.

Evenings are social. This is a cross that wants to be underfoot while dinner is made and against somebody on the sofa afterwards, and a Goldendoodle that has walked, fetched and been included in the day is about as easy a dog as you can live with.

Come and meet the Goldendoodle puppies

Because no two are alike, a photograph tells you less about a Goldendoodle than about almost any other puppy in the store. Coat texture in particular is something you have to put a hand on, and size is something you can only really judge with a puppy standing on your foot.

Our Goldendoodle puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you what a particular puppy’s parents were and how the puppy has been getting on day to day. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor with one 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.