Why you SHOULDN'T get a labradoodle: Australian who invented the popular breed reveals the pitfalls of owning one and how he warned Barack Obama from getting one
- Australian who bred first labradoodle says he created a 'Frankenstein's monster'
- Wally Conron invented cross while breeding a non-allergenic guide dog
- Breeder said the popularity of the dog quickly soared, but at a cost
The Australian man who bred the first labradoodle puppy says he has created a monster.
Wally Conron came up with the idea for a labrador-poodle cross while working as the breeding manager at the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia in the late 1980s.
He was trying to create a non-allergenic guide dog for a blind woman in Hawaii whose husband was allergic to dogs with long hair.
The Australian man who bred the first labradoodle puppy has revealed he regrets sparking the craze for the designer dogs (stock image)
After trialling more than 30 different poodles as guide dogs, he decided the best solution would be to breed a Labrador with a standard poodle.
The first litter of the new breed arrived in 1989.
While one of the newborn puppies, named Sultan, was chosen to go to Hawaii, Mr Conron struggled to offload his two siblings - until he came up with the magic name which would prove the key to the breed's success.
'I said "can you get onto the media and tell them that we've bred a special breed? A breed called the "labradoodle" — it's non-allergenic",' he told ABC Science.
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The popularity of the new breed soon soared thanks to its catchy name, but Mr Conron says he is now full of regret.
'I realised what I had done within a matter of days,' he said.
Wally Conron (pictured) came up with the idea for a labrador-poodle crossbreed while working as the breeding manager at the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia in the late 1980s
'I opened a Pandora's box and released a Frankenstein's monster.'
Raising concerns about the current breeding process for labradoodles, he said the majority of dogs he sees either have hereditary issues or have a bad temperament.
In an earlier interview with Associated Press, the breeder said while he was very careful to ensure he made a healthy labradoodle - others are more interested in making money.
'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,' he said.
'I opened a Pandora's box and released a Frankenstein's monster,' Mr Conron said (stock image)
'Not in my wildest dream did I imagine all of this would happen. That's a trend I started.'
Mr Conron even wrote to the then US President Barack Obama when he was considering buying a Labradoodle as the 'First Pet'.
'He didn't get one in the end, but I wrote him a letter saying what the pitfalls were. I said, if you're going to buy a labradoodle, check both parents, make sure they have a certificate. A lot of them are untrainable,' he told The Guardian.
