Wally Conron was the puppy-breeding manager for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia, and during the early 1980s, he received a request from a vision-impaired woman in Hawaii for a guide dog that would be compatible with her husband’s allergy to dog hair.
He initially though that there was a simple answer – a Standard Poodle, but – after 2 years and 33 trials, he still hadn’t found a suitable candidate.
It was then that he crossed a Standard Poodle with one of the association’s best-producing Labradors.
The mating resulted in only 3 puppies. Coat and saliva samples from all three were sent to the Hawaiian couple, and the husband found that he had no reaction to one of the samples. The puppy was named Sultan and later moved to Hawaii and proved a great success.
It didn’t take long before people heard about this first litter of ‘Labradoodles’, and Wally received enquiries from many people wanting a Labradoodle as an allergy-friendly service dog, and also from many people interested in breeding these dogs.
Wally Conron’s next litter of 10 puppies produced only 3 that were allergy friendly and he started to doubt his efforts.
Backyard breeders who had started crossing everything under the sun with a Poodle were trying to make a quick buck.
Nothing could stop this ‘doodle mania’ and new ‘breeds’ were popping up everywhere. The worry was that breeders were neglectng to health screen their dogs, and were simply racing to supply demand and maximise their profits, at the expense of the puppies, and their new owners.
Today, Wally Conron is recognised as the creator of the Labradoodle, having bred the first litter, but the real success story came in later years when breeders in Australia further developed the Labradoodle by infusing other breeds, namely: English Cocker Spaniel, American Cocker Spaniel, Irish Water Spaniel and the Curly-Coat Retriever. Breeders referred to these dogs as Australian Labradoodles to differentiate them from Labradoodles, which had only Labrador and Poodle bloodlines.
The Australian Labradoodle has attracted huge interest, and breeding dogs were exported globally as the world fell in love with these fantastic dogs.
With so many breeders of Australian Labradoodles in the world today, it is important to ensure that they carry out good breeding practices, protect this still developing breed and keep clear records so that one day, when Kennel Clubs hopefully decide to allow the registration of these wonderful dogs, we have a full history to show them.
This is what the ALAEU does. We have a code of ethics, rules and regulations and a grading scheme which all member breeders must adhere to. We also keep a database of all litters bred and all infusions made.