That above is a labradoodle.

Cute, right?

I am inclined to dislike any breed that contains even a hint of poodle (they have dirty faces and yap incessantly), but the labradoodle remains a popular breed, especially in the UK.

You might think that the man who created the breed is pretty chuffed with himself, but Wally Conron has serious regrets.

This from the Telegraph:

Conron, an Australian dog breeder, first cross-bred a Labrador and a Poodle for a blind woman whose husband was allergic to dog hair, but says it “opened up a Pandora’s box and released a Frankenstein’s monster.”

Today, breeders are not adhering to good practice and producing dogs with health problems, he says, while a “bandwagon” effect means that some are trying to cross inappropriate breeds in an effort to create their own ‘designer dogs’.

Speaking to the Australia Broadcast Network, he says that producing the labradoodle is his “life’s regret” and he hasn’t “got a clue” why people are still breeding them today.

The world’s first labradoodle, Sultan, was born in 1989, after Conron, the breeding manager at the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia, had worked on the crossbreed for more than three years.

His work was instantly heralded, demand for the crossbreed accelerated, and the rise of the designer dog kicked into gear:

He has said before that: “instead of breeding out the problems, they’re breeding them in. For every perfect one, you’re going to find a lot of crazy ones.”

Further adding to his worries are the “unscrupulous breeders crossing poodles with inappropriate dogs simply so they can say they were the first to do it,” he says.

“I just heard about someone who wanted to cross a poodle with a rottweiler. How could anyone do that?” He told the Associated Press.

“Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine all of this would happen.”

Conron clearly holds humans in higher regard than the rest of us.

Here in South Africa, Carte Blanche has reported on a breeding industry that has created dogs with chronic illnesses and health problems, and you only need to take a sunset stroll on Sea Point promenade to see how popular some of these breeds are.

You’re free to own whatever pooch you want, of course, but there are two things worth remembering. They all deserve the finer things in life, regardless of their pedigree, and there are places like DARG or the SPCA that are full of pets just waiting for a home.

Be a hero.

[source:telegraph]