Is Your Doodle Actually Healthier Than a Purebred? The Science of Hybrid Vigor, Health Testing, and What the Data Shows with John Seabrook

Have you questioned whether Doodle breeding really produces healthier dogs than purebred dogs? Or felt like you had to defend that choice without the science to back it up?

You deserve honest, science-based answers that don't talk down to you or make assumptions about why you chose to become a Doodle parent.

In this episode, I'm joined by John Seabrook, a staff writer at The New Yorker, who wrote a deeply reported piece on responsible breeding, the business of designer dogs, and what genetic diversity actually means for your dog's health.

We cover: 

• Health testing at the Goldendoodle Association of North America 

• The science of hybrid vigor and the coefficient of inbreeding 

• Why the AKC has refused to engage with Doodles 

• What drove the rise of shelter Doodles after the pandemic 

• What the best Doodle breeders do differently to protect your Doodle

If you're a Doodle parent looking for science-backed answers on responsible breeding using balanced, honest research, this episode is not to be missed.

Here's to informed Doodle parents, Corinne

🎟️ Save your spot at The Doodle Pro® Summit: https://doodleprosummit.com 🎙️

Corinne Gearhart is the founder of The Doodle Pro® and a certified dog trainer and Doodle specialist with over 50,000 hours of hands-on Doodle experience. She helps Doodle parents raise calmer, well-mannered dogs using science-based positive reinforcement, and is the host of The Doodle Pro® Podcast and author of Your Doodle's Daily Schedule Blueprint™.

📘 Get the Doodle Schedule Blueprint: https://thedoodlepro.com/doodle-schedule-bonus/ 🎧 More episodes: https://thedoodlepro.com/listen

Article mentioned: How Doodles Became the Dog du Jour https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/03/23/how-doodles-became-the-dog-du-jour

 🎉 The Doodle Pro® Virtual Summit is coming this summer, and the waitlist is open now! 

Three days of science-based, no shame, no blame guidance to help you raise the whole Doodle, not just train one. Get on the waitlist to be the first to find out who's joining the lineup, get first access before doors open, plus a complimentary gift while you wait.

👉 Save your spot: doodleprosummit.com 

Corinne Gearhart is the founder of The Doodle Pro®, a science-based training platform helping Doodle parents raise calmer, well-mannered dogs using positive reinforcement. She is the host of The Doodle Pro® Podcast and author of Your Doodle’s Daily Schedule Blueprint™.

📘 Get the Doodle Schedule Blueprint:
https://thedoodlepro.com/doodle-schedule-bonus/

🎧 More episodes:
https://thedoodlepro.com/podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00] John: Doodles get it from both sides, really. The purebred people resent them because they're sort of impure breeds in some way, and then the rescue people resent them because you pay for them usually. [00:01:00] John, I've been looking forward to our chat today ever since I read your article in The New Yorker, which was truly a deep dive into Doodles and the business of Doodles and the politics of Doodles.

Yeah, Corinne, I'm really happy to talk to you. I love talking Doodles, so thanks for having me on the show.

[00:01:21] Corinne: No surprise, I do too, but something might surprise you. We were in the same room in January. We were both at the Goldendoodle Association- Yeah ... of North America conference.

[00:01:32] John: I know, amazing.

[00:01:33] Corinne: I was chit-chatting with some of the breeders, so you and I were, like, the two exceptions of people in the room that aren't Doodle breeders.

[00:01:40] John: Right. Right. Yeah. I had a nice time. It was nice.

[00:01:43] Corinne: The first day, and you kind of talked about this in your article, the first day was a bit more about the business of breeding.

[00:01:51] John: Right.

[00:01:51] Corinne: Right? Like, uh, and as a business owner, I'm a little more familiar with creating websites and branding and stuff, and the [00:02:00] people in that room are more about building dogs and literally, like, breeding.

Day two as a non-breeder was, like, really getting down and dirty into, like, artificial insemination- Right ... Doodles and tube feeding and OFA X-rays and all that.

[00:02:17] John: Right. That was a little bit beyond what I needed for my article. Yeah. So I figured I wasn't really necessary to stick around.

[00:02:26] Corinne: But- Uh, yes, but not at all.

What I do think was interesting was the contrast between you going to Westminster. When I said this was a deep dive, like, you really did do your research here. Feeling like a bit of a pariah at Westminster To what you call DoodleCon DoodleCon At

[00:02:47] John: the conference

[00:02:48] Corinne: I mean,

[00:02:48] John: I went to, uh, Meet the Breeds. I went to Meet the Breeds.

Oh, that's- Well, I went to Westminster too- Yeah ... but in the article I talk about going to Meet the Breeds, which was, like, four days after Westminster.

[00:02:59] Corinne: [00:03:00] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:00] John: But a lot of the same dogs were s- 'cause they're, you know, Meet the Breeds is at Javits Center. Westminster starts in Javits Center, then the finals are in, you know, Madison Square Garden.

[00:03:12] Corinne: So I have a similar experience as I'm in the professional dog industry, but I specialize in doodles. And so I have the same sort of experience when people ask, "Oh, what kind of dogs do you work with?" And the response. So when people asked you what kind of dog you had, do you mind sharing with our listeners what that was like a little?

[00:03:34] John: Yeah, so I went to Meet the Breeds, which is, as your listeners may know, is it's in the Javits Center in New York, so it's a very large exhibition. Uh, AKC, I think there are, like, 150 of the 220 so recognized breeds. So each of, each breed has kind of its own pavilion with, with, with information and then a breeder usually behind the desk.

So yeah, I walked through I walked [00:04:00] around and engaged breeders of different kinds of dogs in conversation. Clearly I was a dog lover, uh- Yeah ... very enthusiastic. So then inevitably th- there would, the question would arise, you know, "So what kind of dog do you have?" to me, and then I would usually tell them that I had a goldendoodle.

And at that moment the vibe shift occurred. Um, pretty, pretty major vibe shift. Sometimes it was kind of funny. Yeah. Uh, like the sheepadoodle, the sheepdog person was kind of funny when I told her I had a doodle 'cause it was like, "Well, at least you don't have a sheepadoodle. You have a goldendoodle." As you probably know, the poodle people are the ones that are the most kind of anti-doodle.

[00:04:44] Corinne: Yes.

[00:04:45] John: Quite reasonably, I suppose. And so when I went up to them, I was basically planning not to reveal that I was a doodle person, and I got into this nice conversation with someone named Joyce, whose show dog [00:05:00] was right on the table right in front of us with, like, its, you know, show cut. And we had a nice chat, and, uh, I was gonna give her my card, and as I, I always have, you know, as, as we do, a roll of poop bags-

in my pocket, which inevitably, this happens all the time, you pull out, like, one bag and you get the whole roll, and then the

[00:05:22] Corinne: roll-

[00:05:22] John: It unspools ... unspools. And so I did that, and the whole thing unspooled right in front of this person. And I was just kind of waiting for the question, like, "Oh, what kind of dog do you have?"

And I wasn't sure what I was gonna say. In fact, I kind of decided I would just say I have a mutt, which I guess in their parlance- Dog fit there, yeah ... would probably be true. But she didn't ask, and I kind of like, I kinda hurried away. Um, later, later I had a funny interaction with her 'cause she read the article.

[00:05:53] Corinne: Oh,

[00:05:53] John: okay. I sent it to her.

[00:05:54] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:05:54] John: I, I sent it to her, and I said, "Okay, you never asked, but in fact, I [00:06:00] have a Goldendoodle." And she sent me back actually a very nice email saying she loved the article. I used a word in the article that was this Filipino English word, which is pronounced giggle. The Oxford English Dictionary made it an official English language word last year, and giggle means something that's so unbearably cute that you almost kinda wanna pinch it.

Right. You know, like you kinda want to... Like, the, the, the idea of like squeezing something to death because it's so cute. That was my experience when I saw, uh, Herman, our dog, as a puppy for the very first time. I had that emotion, and so sh- the poodle person said that she felt giggle while reading the article, so-

[00:06:48] Corinne: Oh, that's so warm.

I love that.

[00:06:51] John: That was nice.

[00:06:52] Corinne: Yes. I felt like it really was so thoroughly researched and balanced of a look at all of the [00:07:00] angles that people take with doodles, and kinda dissecting it a little bit. You've had other breeds of dogs before Herman, right?

[00:07:09] John: Yeah. I, I've grown up, I grew up with dogs. I grew up on a farm.

I had a kind of a rural dog experience, so- Mm ... which means that, you know, there's often, there's often puppies nearby available. You don't really necessarily go looking for dogs. They kind of find you- Find you. ... in a certain way. And so I had a mix of, of, you know, both mongrels and then some purebreds. I had a Standard Poo.

My dad had a Standard Poodle when I was born, and I actually think that dog is kind of like in the back of my mind- Mm ... because when Herman has a poodle cut, he often looks kind of like that dog. He was, you know, he was a full-sized Standard Poodle. I had retrievers, which I loved, but hip dysplasia was a thing.

Yeah. Cancer was, uh, the way that dog died, and that's a thing too. [00:08:00] And then when I moved to the city, I actually had cats when I moved to the city as a bachelor because I couldn't really keep a... I mean, you know, I didn't really feel like dealing with a dog.

[00:08:09] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:08:09] John: But then when I got married and, and we had kids, we decided to get, uh, a rescue.

And so we got a rescue from an organization in Scarsdale, Upstate New York, that brings dogs up from the South. And that was a fantastic dog, and we loved that dog and had that dog for, like, 16 years. He lived for a long time. And then when, when... It was she, actually. When she died, there was a sort of a mourning period.

Mm-hmm. And I wanted to get another dog, but my wife didn't feel like it was appropriate. We had to sort of observe this period of mourning for Foxy. We weren't really thinking about a Goldendoodle. My brother has a Goldendoodle. Okay. So

[00:08:50] Corinne: I had-

[00:08:50] John: So he was

[00:08:50] Corinne: first.

[00:08:52] John: He-- Yeah, he got- Okay ... like a mid-size Goldendoodle.

He was always talking about how great their Goldendoodle was. So I did have that [00:09:00] in the back of my mind, but it was really quite coincidental. We, we have a place in Vermont. Mm. It's a farm. I, I just sort of always wanna be in a farm environment if I can, and here I am in Brooklyn, so I'm, I'm not. Uh, and, uh, there's a small-town newspaper, and there was an ad in the paper- Mm

a litter of Goldendoodles. A neighbor... It kinda reminded me of, of my youth and how we got dogs. You know, a neighbor would get a litter, and you just get one of those dogs.

[00:09:29] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:29] John: And so we went over and, and saw the litter. And, you know, of course, as soon as you see a litter of Goldendoodles, it's very, very difficult- That's it

to walk away from it. And I took my kids, too, which made it- Oh,

[00:09:41] Corinne: then it was over.

[00:09:42] John: So it was over. So it was totally over. We got Herman. He was, like, five weeks at that point, and we got him when he was nine weeks. He started in Vermont, uh, and then he came to Brooklyn, and now he's very sort of back and forth.

He's coming back from Vermont right now. So he goes from [00:10:00] an urban environment where he's on the leash, but then off the leash in the park with all kinds of dogs. Yeah. You know, like a very, very social situation, you know, with, like, 100 dogs. And then he goes to Vermont where he's never on a leash. Mm-hmm.

But he's, you know, out in the country, often by himself, and then he has a five-hour car ride in between the two, and he's adapted to that so incredibly well. Really couldn't have a better dog for this, the situation in my life, you know, going back and forth between the city and the country and, and being able to adjust really well.

Really well socialized.

[00:10:42] Corinne: Mm.

[00:10:43] John: Never, ever fights. And if a dog is aggressive, he just lies down. He doesn't need to be, uh, the alpha dog, and I just think that's great. My son's always like, "Oh, why can't he be the alpha dog?" I'm like, "You know, it's so much easier."

[00:10:58] Corinne: Why is it

[00:10:58] John: all for you? Yeah. [00:11:00] So he's never, he's never really had a, a fight at all.

He's really never had a day of trauma in his life. I mean, the one thing about rescues, I mean, everybody should get a rescue when they can, but the thing about a rescue is you're never-- There's this period in their life where you just didn't... You don't know what happened.

[00:11:17] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:18] John: Something happened. They were out on their own for a while.

There's definitely, like, trauma that sort of finds its way into certain behaviors.

[00:11:26] Corinne: Mm-hmm

[00:11:27] John: And it's always a little just kind of frustrating that you can never know that period in your dog's life. Whereas with Herman, like, you know, I kind of know every single day that he's been well loved, and he's never really experienced trauma, and I think that's...

I, I mean, I just... I'm so happy about that.

[00:11:47] Corinne: You do talk about a bit at the dog parks in New York, and I used to live in the East Village, but I remember this a little bit extra in Brooklyn, like, the virtue signaling of- Right.

[00:11:58] John: There's a lot of it ...

[00:11:59] Corinne: how hard- There's

[00:11:59] John: a [00:12:00] lot of virtue signaling ...

[00:12:01] Corinne: how hard of a life your rescue had that-

[00:12:04] John: Right,

[00:12:04] Corinne: and

[00:12:04] John: the harder it was, the higher- The less

[00:12:06] Corinne: legs they have that work.

[00:12:08] John: Right. The higher... Yeah. Or, like, it's, like, a retired greyhound or, you know- Mm-hmm ... like a pit bull that was rescued from a violent situation. But those people are incredible, that- Yes ... that they, they have the love and the care and are willing to endure whatever they have to endure-

[00:12:26] Corinne: Mm-hmm ...

[00:12:27] John: to, to, to take care of their dog.

Uh, so, so yeah, those people are kind... Like, in the status hierarchy, I feel like they're the ones that are at the top, and I'm totally happy to give them that place- Yes ... 'cause I do admire those folks greatly. I think the doodle people, I don't know whether the purebred people or the doodle people are at the bottom, but they're definitely not a dog to get if you're looking for, like, uh, like, status in, in, in New York City dog parks.

Um...

[00:12:58] Corinne: No, it's really not. Or [00:13:00] in a, in a pet professional kind of world. I would say that purebreds are seen as more elite and desirable- They are, yeah ... amongst the dog world-

[00:13:12] John: I think so, yeah ... than doodles. Oh, for sure.

[00:13:13] Corinne: Yes.

[00:13:14] John: Absolutely. I mean- I- ... so doodles get it from both sides, really. They-

[00:13:17] Corinne: Mm-hmm ...

[00:13:18] John: the purebred people resent them because, you know, they're sort of impure breeds in some way, and then the rescue people resent them because you paid for them usually.

Although, there are now a lot of doodles in shelters. Mm-hmm. And a lot of Herman's friends actually- Come from shelters and not from, you know, breeders. At least not origin- I mean, uh, they came from a breeder, a breeder originally, but I think what happened, and you probably discuss this a lot on your, on your podcast, but a lot of people got doodles during the pandemic- Yes

because, you know, they wanted a dog. It was easy to get. All these folks got doodles during the pandemic. They found out how [00:14:00] expensive they were to maintain and how much time they are to, uh, kinda keep them used, and so they ended up in shelters. Yeah. They were sort of re-homed, and you do see a lot of shelter doodles now, at least in the city.

I don't know if that's true outside of the city, but some people pay a lot of money. Some people get them from shelters. It's kind of all over the map.

[00:14:18] Corinne: Yes. And you are correct, though, in the assessment that there's judgment coming from both sides.

[00:14:23] John: Um-

[00:14:23] Corinne: Absolutely. Yes. And when... You, you and I share that we both have had standard poodles, and that's something that's said a lot, especially from the poodle organizations, of "Why don't you just get a poodle?"

And I had... I mean, God, I... In fact,

[00:14:42] John: I have

[00:14:43] Corinne: on my desk, this is like a little- ... ceramic thing I made of my standard poodle, my late poodle, in a show cut, but she died at four.

[00:14:53] John: Oh,

[00:14:53] Corinne: no. And- Oh, man ... yes, of a congenital issue.

[00:14:57] John: Oh, wow.

[00:14:57] Corinne: And now I know more [00:15:00] about how I could have selected a breeder of poodles, knowing more about health testing.

But just that it's a purebred dog is not a guarantee And just because it's a doodle isn't gu- a guarantee that they're not health tested. No. And that's surprising for people.

[00:15:17] John: I think that is surprising. I'm, I'm actually surprised that a standard poodle you got from a breeder wasn't health tested. I mean-

[00:15:24] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:15:25] John: I was younger.

[00:15:25] Corinne: Lesson learned ...

[00:15:26] John: but it's a little, there's, there's so, everything is unregulated here, so you just have to sort of find a breeder that, that you trust, I guess, you know?

[00:15:34] Corinne: And you talked to actually a couple of them at GANA, the Golden Doodle Conference, or DoodleCon as you called it, that are in, I have this, like a special curated list, uh, network of doodle breeders to try to save people from going through the heartbreak I went through with my poodle.

Mm-hmm. And Amy Lane with Fox Creek Farm, she's one of them.

[00:15:56] John: Yeah. Amy's great.

[00:15:57] Corinne: And she talked about... Yeah, she's wonderful. And [00:16:00] she, for our listeners, she started Mini Golden Doodles in 2002. Yeah. But she talks about kind of the more genetic diversity.

[00:16:09] John: Yeah.

[00:16:10] Corinne: Uh, like with the third cousin rule, not breeding father to- Yeah

daughter, et cetera. Can you share a little more what you learned there?

[00:16:16] John: Yeah, so, uh, one, one reason I think that what Amy's doing is so great is that if you wanna belong to GANA, the Golden Doodle Association of North America, you have to agree to this much more, uh, rigorous regime of health testing than the AKC requires, which includes genetic testing.

And also, you have to pledge that you won't breed your dog to any other dog closer than a third cousin in order to avoid the kind of inherited congenital diseases that plague the purebred world. So Amy made this commitment and, and one of the experiences [00:17:00] I had at GANA which was pretty powerful, was I met this breeder named Cindy Nitzke, who's a South Carolina breeder, who used to breed Great Danes- Yeah

and was like a, a major AKC Great Dane breeder and shower. She had grand champion Great Danes, but they were plagued with these health problems- Mm-hmm ... these spine problems, which is common to Great Danes, and her last champion died when he was like eight, I think, or six maybe. Young.

[00:17:29] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:17:29] John: And she was so upset that she just said, "I can't do this anymore."

And then she heard about GANA and the GANA's health requirements and what they required- And she just became converted to the Goldendoodle, you know, world and left her AKC world behind.

[00:17:49] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:49] John: And her AKC friends treated her like the Antichrist is the word- Yeah ... she used actually, uh, that like, you know, "How dare you breed Goldendoodles?"

[00:18:00] So she actually lost quite a few friends with this choice, but she's much happier and, you know, hasn't had those kind of issues. I mean, it's true that, you know, Goldendoodles, uh, it depends on the generation. If it's a first generation Goldendoodle, the parents are purebred dogs, and they might have those inherited diseases.

[00:18:23] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:23] John: But you get hybrid vigor from having two sort of relatively distinct genetic lines crossed. Now, hybrid vigor is also a very sort of like controversial- Yeah ... topic in the breeding world. Ultimately, the data isn't really definite one way or the other But if you do a DNA test, like I did a D- DNA test of Herman, and, and you look at his coefficient of inbreeding, the COI, the number that kinda tells you how inbred, inbred your dog is, Herman [00:19:00] had a less than 1% COI, whereas like a typical golden, uh, retriever has like a 20%- Mm-hmm

you know, typical purebred poodle also around a 20% COI. So I mean, just that suggests to me that your chances are better of having a healthy dog, at least with a first generation cross, than a purebred. Uh, you know, but again, the data, you, it can... It doesn't always work out that way.

[00:19:28] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:28] John: Yeah,

[00:19:29] Corinne: it's no guarantee of a healthy dog

[00:19:30] John: just on its face.

Right. There's no guarantee.

[00:19:32] Corinne: Right.

[00:19:32] John: But I just feel like y- you're just giving yourself a better shot-

[00:19:36] Corinne: Mm-hmm ...

[00:19:36] John: that way. And that was a big part of why I really ended up wanting a goldendoodle, and getting a goldendoodle, and now being like kind of an advocate of, of goldendoodles. I just think the chances are of them being healthier than, than their purebred pa- parents.

[00:19:52] Corinne: And there are misconceptions where people think I'm getting a golden just without the shedding coat and a little healthier, [00:20:00] ignoring the poodle traits that come with, and it's not a guarantee of which we're pulling, which is why this genetic testing's wonderful. I talked to Cindy at the conference as well, and just hearing her heartbreak twofold over watching her intentionally bred champions pass so early-

[00:20:22] John: Yeah

[00:20:23] Corinne: and the grief of losing all these friends that she had worked with- Yeah ... and the respect that they had built together. There were other breeders at this conference, one of Dalmatians, one of, um- Yeah, I met her ... toy poodles who said, "Please don't mention my name Because I'm AKC and I'm not supposed to, like, associate with the dual world.

Yeah. But this is a really educational conference, and they're doing... I wanna talk to the vet who does the OFA hip X-rays, and I wanna learn. And it's just fascinating, the politics of it all.

[00:20:56] John: I have Dalmatians too, and we had the... I, [00:21:00] I think it's gotten better, but both of our Dalmatians had hearing-

[00:21:03] Corinne: Mm-hmm

[00:21:03] John: issues, which were linked to breed standards.

[00:21:07] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:07] John: You know, breeding for, uh, more white in the body, uh, and, and bigger but isolated spots-

[00:21:14] Corinne: Yeah ...

[00:21:15] John: was linked to, uh, deafness. And one of our dogs really... I- it's really, if you have children around a deaf dog, it can be very hazardous 'cause-

[00:21:23] Corinne: Mm-hmm ...

[00:21:24] John: the dog doesn't hear the child coming, and can react badly if you scare it.

Like, you know, come up and talk to children, don't know that.

[00:21:33] Corinne: Right.

[00:21:34] John: So yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:35] Corinne: In your article, you dive into kind of the Victorian parallels, and when we talk about these breed standards and these accepted breeds in the AKC, these definitions haven't been around permanently. The origins of them-

[00:21:51] John: Right.

Right. Like a lot of people think of breeds, and the AKC kind of also promotes this idea that breeds are like these ancient strains of [00:22:00] dogs that go back to the Middle Ages or even to like Roman times when they had sort of mastiff-like-

[00:22:06] Corinne: Mm-hmm ...

[00:22:06] John: dogs. And actually, I just came from Rome with... We, we took a family trip, and- Mm

there are all these dogs in the, in the statuary, the ancient Roman- Yeah ... statuary. You see these, these big, scary looking dogs. But you know, in fact, the whole idea of breed was basically invented in the mid-19th century. People didn't really call them or think of them as breeds before that. They were kind of varieties.

[00:22:34] Corinne: Mm-hmm. But

[00:22:34] John: they were overlapping varieties and, and it wasn't like people took pedigree seriously until the Victorian era and, and people had these, what they call foundational dogs. So, you know, if in the case of golden retrievers, there are these two foundational dogs that were bred in Scotland. And then, you know, I, I feel like the, the show world [00:23:00] has, has gotten a lot of criticism for, for these practices, but has reacted by basically just kind of closing themselves off from the rest of the world and kind of only really caring about what each other sort of think about what their dogs are doing or how their dogs are showing.

It's a, it's a oddly-- even though it, you know, every other, every year or twice a year, you see the dog shows on TV, and it is kind of a mass entertainment at that point. But in other ways, it's a very sort of closed-off subculture of people who compete against each other, not really for money. I mean-

[00:23:43] Corinne: Right

[00:23:43] John: this is another big thing that I kind of learned in reporting this piece was Like even though of course, you know, their breeders do make money in the purebred world, like you don't talk about it really. You don't talk about marketing. Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, you may sell the puppies, but you don't really [00:24:00] advertise that much.

You sort of go by word of mouth. You don't see websites on Instagram, you know, often- Mm-hmm ... with, uh, purebred dogs for sale. That all is... And again, that's all sort of part of this sort of 19th century idea of we don't do it for money, we do it for the sort of amateur ideal of, of betterment of breed.

[00:24:23] Corinne: Right.

[00:24:23] John: And that's a, a cultural difference between the purebred world and the doodle world, is that the doodle world basically started as a kind of commercial endeavor. I mean, of course it, it was a, it was a guide dog originally, you know, and, and bred for, for specific needs. People that might be allergic to the kind of dogs that usually become guide dogs, which, which are retrievers and labs.

But you know, early, quickly, early on, particularly when it came to the States, it came from Australia, it was a commercial endeavor from the get-go and, and there were [00:25:00] advertising and marketing and websites. Mm-hmm. I mean, it happened to kind of... The doodle phenomenon kind of parallels the rise of social media.

[00:25:08] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:25:08] John: So, uh, they kind of grew up together. Whereas I think for, for purebred breeders, like they were well-established and they had their, their networks of people long before social media came along-

[00:25:21] Corinne: Mm-hmm ...

[00:25:21] John: and never really embraced it. So like yeah, Doodle Con, there was a whole day really spent on marketing, uh, you know, branding and optimization of websites and, and, uh, and I thought that was all very refreshing and great, but you know, I think to like a classic purebred person, maybe that would seem like grossly commercial.

[00:25:45] Corinne: Mm-hmm. Uh,

[00:25:45] John: and, and not what dog breeders really should be concerning themselves with. So there's a very, it's a quite distinct set of cultures for this to go through.

[00:25:56] Corinne: Yeah, you really explore both in person, and [00:26:00] the term that, the derogatory kind of term that is used to label this is breeders. Um- Breeders.

[00:26:07] John: I haven't actually heard that one.

[00:26:08] Corinne: Yeah. Okay. That's a, you know, a label that's thrown on a lot, but if you're not deemed an official breed, you can't get titles.

[00:26:18] John: Right.

[00:26:18] Corinne: You can't participate in this system, so there's other ways that people have to find you, and you talk in the article about how this group of dogs kind of this industry came in a different way from the consumer.

It was c- consumer led-

[00:26:35] John: Yeah ... instead

[00:26:35] Corinne: of based on the virtue of this gun dog, you know- Right ... hunting for the geese or whatever.

[00:26:42] John: Well, and I think that's another important sort of distinction is that poodles kind of arose basically at a time when the functions that the original breeds were created for no longer existed, or [00:27:00] only in very few cases.

Most retrievers were not retrieving birds and, you know, most Dotsons weren't going in after badgers and, you know, the, all the ratting dogs weren't ratting anymore. And yet they were still kind of sold and, and, and, and mar- well, not mar- you know, they were presented to the world as, as for that purpose, and it was important that they have that purpose.

But the fact is they weren't fulfilling that purpose anymore. Mm-hmm. So when Doodles kinda came along, w- it was like, well, this dog is really just for your family, and it's a companion, and it doesn't shed, so it'll keep your apartment cleaner. But it doesn't really do anything like, you know, like-

[00:27:43] Corinne: They're your companion.

[00:27:44] John: It might, it might retrieve. It might you know, it, it might go in the water. It might swim. It might, might, in the case of Herman, Herman wades, but he doesn't swim. Oh. So he's kind of like the poodle kind of wader, but not a re- not a retriever [00:28:00] swimmer. Or they might not, like, know how to do any of that at all, but we don't care because that's not what we're getting dogs...

So there, so there was a sort of honesty to it- Mm-hmm ... I feel like. And also the idea of like a, a, a companion dog, but like a therapy dog too. Mm-hmm. Um, and maybe not necessarily, you know, I know you, you're not necessarily an official therapy dog, but these dogs are, I feel, very sort of emotionally available.

[00:28:28] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:28:28] John: Um, uh, and, um, if you're just having a bad day and you wanna give your dog a, just a long hug and feel... And the dog, I don't know, maybe I'm imagining it, but the dog, our dog seems to really invite that kind of interaction and, and reward it with, with empathy or with some kind of emotional, you know, give back.

Mm-hmm. You know, so I, you just hear all these stories of, of these dogs in hospitals. I mean, not, not shedding is also, I think, huge in a [00:29:00] kind of a clinical situation- Mm-hmm ... you know, where you're trying to keep things clean. I had a great conversation with this ex, uh, vet, this vet, uh, ex-soldier from Iraq-

[00:29:11] Corinne: Mm-hmm

[00:29:11] John: who got into dog breeding after he got back, and supplies Doodles to his buddies with PTSD. Anyway, so I do think there's a real kind of emotional component that the dogs have that does distinguish the, them and make them I don't know, just particularly attached to- Yes ... to people.

[00:29:35] Corinne: Australian Labradoodles in particular are bred for that purpose.

When you have a skilled Australian Labradoodle breeder, that temperament is one of the top features that they're going for. Right. And they'll, like, lean into you. Yeah. And I was speaking with- That's right. They lean on you. Yes. Yeah. I was speaking to my training mentor, she- Jean Donaldson, she's, like, the founder of positive reinforcement training, and she [00:30:00] specializes in Chows.

And she said people complain all the time that Doodles jump on people And she said they're so pro-social that they want to be face-to-face. That's how dogs communicate I

[00:30:12] John: agree with that. They want... They... And also I think they just wanna stand up like people sometimes. They do. They wanna be on... They see people doing it.

Yeah.

[00:30:18] Corinne: And she said, "Do you know what chow owners would give to have a drop of that pro-social instinct?" Like, you- there are other breeds that you have to work so hard for them just to feel a little relaxed when a new person is around.

[00:30:32] John: Really?

[00:30:33] Corinne: And doodle parents, we're struggling with you're too excited- It's the opposite

for the guest to come over.

[00:30:39] John: Yeah, I know. And like, I, I don't want Herman jumping up on people. I guess- Right ... you don't want dogs jumping on them. Yeah. But when you s- you, you meet somebody who gets it, they know that the dog isn't just being misbehaved.

[00:30:51] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:51] John: The dog is actually greeting you with like a full body kind of hug.

[00:30:57] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:30:57] John: Uh, and if you submit to it, it's a [00:31:00] great feeling, you know? So I don't... So like I often, like often when I'm waiting on street corners here in the city, Herman just kinda wants to jump up and, and s- and wait, like basic- Yeah ... he's, he's a, he's a standard goldendoodle, so he's not that... His eye level is not that much below mine, and I'm pretty tall.

So you know, we're standing there on the corner while cars are going by, but in fact, we're having a wonderful moment together, so.

[00:31:29] Corinne: When we were talking about purpose, you mentioned, often talked about kind of quote founder Wally Conron. Yeah. And he was breeding, I think it was labs, right? Yeah, he was breeding labs- Yeah, he was breeding

[00:31:44] John: labs

[00:31:44] Corinne: for therapy dogs, and- Yes ... somebody was allergic to labs, and so he crossed them with poodle. Yeah. Uh, and so became the labradoodle. But it is often quoted by critics of doodles that- Yeah ... in later interviews, he [00:32:00] said it was the greatest re- regret of his life. Right. And that he felt like he had built Frankenstein.

[00:32:05] John: Everyone who has got a beef about doodles quotes that, right? Yes. Everybody loves... If you go on like Reddit, that comes up, you know, like every other comment. And I just kinda wonder whether W- Wally was just having a bad day that day maybe.

[00:32:23] Corinne: It was one interview, yep.

[00:32:25] John: I mean, he was... You know, he... Well, I'm reach- I tried to reach, reach him to see if he wanted to recant, you know?

Like, you know- Yeah ... I mean, like if this is your life's regret, you've had a darn good life because you actually provided a lot of joy, uh, for people like me, and surely he can recognize that. But I, I never could find him, and he, he's, if he's even alive, he's 97 years old. Mm. So I don't know ex- exactly what state he's in, but I just sort of feel like [00:33:00] he didn't really intend that to be his legacy.

Like, his legacy is he did this wonderful thing, and it's not like he created a Frankenstein. I feel like he just, uh, wasn't really giving us maybe what was fully in his heart. And, and it's not like he was the first person to cross a Poodle in a lab.

[00:33:21] Corinne: Right.

[00:33:21] John: What he really did was name... I mean, he gave it a name.

You know, he gave it that Labradoodle. He, he and his people, or one of his people, came up with that word.

[00:33:33] Corinne: Yes.

[00:33:33] John: And I thought what was fascinating in just kind of looking at, at the, the story is, you know, nobody wanted the, the two siblings of the dog, Sultan, that ended up going to the blind, allergic person.

Um-

[00:33:50] Corinne: Nobody wanted

[00:33:50] John: the mutts ... they didn't want the mutts. Mm-hmm. And then he said to his people, "Well, let's call them a Labradoodle," and then everybody wanted them. It was the [00:34:00] word that maybe he's really the, the author of. Okay. And, uh, and the word did help, I guess, kind of drive the, the marketing. But, um, yeah, I think, I just think he's being a little hard on himself to call it his, his life's regret because really, I mean, he, he did a lot.

It's a, it's a good thing. That should be his life's, you know, joy that he created these dogs.

[00:34:24] Corinne: Yeah. If anyone was going to get a final comment on it, it would've been the staff writer at The New Yorker writing a piece on it. So thank you for trying. And if we were to think back to our earlier part of our conversation, he was a leader in dog training and in breeding, and we just talked about how that community likes to preserve the breed.

[00:34:49] John: Yeah.

[00:34:49] Corinne: And so that would be frowned upon, this- Yeah ... like, kind of invention of the doodle term- Right ... et cetera, and phenomenon. And when they become really hot, being [00:35:00] consumer-led, there have been breeders that have not health tested- Right ... and there have been puppy farms, you talked about them in Lancaster, and that luckily that demand has dropped co- and that's really been thinned out a lot.

People aren't making what they could hand over fist as they did during the pandemic. Right. I could see the regret of unscrupulous breeders- Right ... and people without intention, but there probably may be some pressure on stating some regret there if your community is all about bettering

[00:35:32] John: the breed. Right.

Right, I'm sure in his, maybe in his community he got a lot of criticism for it. And, uh, and you're absolutely right, doodles are such a commodity- Mm-hmm ... and particularly in the pandemic, and it's still the case. Not so much maybe the puppy mills themselves, but the puppy brokers that create-

[00:35:49] Corinne: Mm ...

[00:35:49] John: the websites, then you never really know where...

And they say they'll bring the dog to you.

[00:35:55] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:35:55] John: Right? And you know, so you never actually see their, their [00:36:00] facility, you never meet the parents.

[00:36:02] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:02] John: I mean, that, that was really why... I don't think, I would have never gotten a doodle that way, and I, and if that Uh, was the only way to get doodles, I just wouldn't have gotten one.

[00:36:13] Corinne: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:14] John: But the fact that in our case, you know, there's this person 20 minutes away, and she actually, the, the, the poodle and the retriever were her dogs.

[00:36:24] Corinne: Oh,

[00:36:25] John: yeah. Um, you know, so, and, and she wasn't even really like a cr- I mean, she was like a hobby breeder. She really, she, she had these, these retrievers, the grandmother, the mother, and then we had like the granddaughter of her original dog, who was the mother of Herman.

And then she got a poodle like 10 years ago, and she'd had like one other litter, uh, with this poodle. So in no way was she like a puppy mill. She was like the opposite- Right ... of a puppy mill. You know, it was a very- Yeah ... sort of artisanal, and it was, and you could, she was a registered [00:37:00] nurse. I, I had a, just a very good feeling about her as a person.

[00:37:05] Corinne: Mm.

[00:37:06] John: There was just a lot of kindness and love in this person. You could just see it right away. Mm. That made a huge difference. And I would encourage all people, I'm sure your listeners are aware of this too, just, you know, if you can, go and visit the breeder and see the dogs- Mm-hmm ... and see where they're, they're living because, you know, these websites do make it, I think for younger people, not, not having to wait, you know?

Right. Having sort of like the instant gratification- Mm-hmm ... of like an Amazon type, uh, it can, you know, kind of- This puppy's

[00:37:39] Corinne: available today, yeah.

[00:37:40] John: Right. You can have your puppy today, and just click, and you see all these, the pictures of them and, uh, yeah. And that often leads to you're not getting your dogs from the right place, and who knows what kind of situation they- were bred in, so

[00:37:56] Corinne: Yours sounds almost kind of romantic and meant to be, that it was the [00:38:00] actual and a physical newspaper, the listing.

The

[00:38:02] John: fact that it was actually a classified ad in a newspaper - ... which also basically doesn't exist anymore- Right ... was a big part of it. As a, as a journalist, I felt like, you know, I've watched as newspapers and magazines, and I'm really a, a magazine writer, but- Mm-hmm ... the same thing has happened. I've watched as the ads and the whole business model has disappeared-

[00:38:25] Corinne: Right

[00:38:26] John: you know, with the rise of Facebook and, and The New Yorker's kind of a unique case because the subscribers are so loyal- ... that it's not driven by ads, it's driven by subscriptions, and the subscribers almost always resubscribe. So we're fortunate, but basically every other publication has, has suffered greatly and many have closed.

So the fact that I was, like, supporting the local paper- ... and, and showing that classified ads actually still serve a, a, a purpose and connecting with stuff you want was [00:39:00] an, to me, important part of the whole thing. Yeah.

[00:39:02] Corinne: Absolutely. So you mentioned that one of the breeders gave you a live, laugh, bark little doodle calendar.

[00:39:11] John: That was, that was Cindy.

[00:39:12] Corinne: Yes, and that you thought maybe you're ready for the double doodle life- Well, I don't know ... that you might think of getting another?

[00:39:20] John: We d- we do now talk constantly about getting another dogs, because Herman is, you know, whenever he's with other dogs, he's just always- Uh-huh ... happy, and it would take a little bit of the pressure off us to keep him amused.

But I think we would probably not get a doodle. I think we, like Lisa in particular, it was like the, the karma imbalance of having two doodles rather than having- ... like a doodle and a rescue. Like having a doodle and a rescue would kind of balance it out.

[00:39:50] Corinne: There you go.

[00:39:51] John: But having like two doodles would be like a heavy karma load on that one side and, uh, I don't-

[00:39:57] Corinne: You don't know if you can walk into the dog park as [00:40:00] proud?

Your head isn't in-

[00:40:00] John: I, I don't know. I just think that, yeah- ... we, we'd be, we'd cover, we'd cover our moral bases a little bit better if we, uh, ended up with a rescue. So I think if we, I think that would probably be our next dog, and I, I think we probably will get a second dog. Um, you know, the only thing is like, my children who came with me to, came with us to- Yeah

meet the dog and, and part of the whole bargain was that they were going to Be to help look after the dog. That went out the window very quickly. The eternal promise. Right? I'm the one and Lisa's the one, and the kids are very rarely involved. Um-

[00:40:39] Corinne: And are the kids grown now?

[00:40:40] John: Uh, well, my son's 27, but- Yeah ... my daughter's 17, so she's still in the house.

[00:40:46] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:40:46] John: Although she's going to college next year. She's not someone that takes the dog out for a lot of walks. When it was a puppy, she was happy because, like, everybody loved the puppy, and it was so cute. Right. It was unbelievable walking [00:41:00] along the sidewalk with a doodle puppy. It was, it, it was so, it was so, uh, that period was just so memorable.

Like, everybody would see the dog coming on the sidewalk and would just... Like, it's incredible what puppies do to people.

[00:41:16] Corinne: Yes.

[00:41:16] John: They just go nuts. Yeah. I'm

[00:41:18] Corinne: gonna steal your term, geekle. Am I saying it right, then?

[00:41:21] John: It's geekle, yeah.

[00:41:22] Corinne: Yes.

[00:41:22] John: Geekle.

[00:41:23] Corinne: Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's, like, like overflowing with them.

[00:41:27] John: Oh, yeah. Yes.

The emotion of geekle is provoked by these... I mean, I guess all puppies are, are incredibly cute, but the doodle with the teddy bear features- Mm-hmm ... and everything is just out of this, off the charts cute.

[00:41:40] Corinne: Did I miss anything discussing your article or anything that you would like to cover? This has been a delight.

[00:41:48] John: Um, let me, let me just th- think about it for a second. I mean- Sure ... it was, it was like, um, I just thought it was interesting. The AKC, I, I reached out on a number of occasion. I mean, you think of The New Yorker and dogs. [00:42:00] Yeah. You think of the cartoons. Uh, there's a long history. The New Yorker's 100 years old, literally.

It's 101 now. It was, we had our 100th anniversary last year. And in that history, there have been many, many, many cartoons of different kinds, mostly purebred dogs.

[00:42:20] Corinne: Right.

[00:42:20] John: And, and there's like, we have a book of, of dog cartoons. There's like a calendar of dog cartoons. And you gotta feel like the, the audience, The New Yorker audience is probably a fairly purebred sort of loving type audience.

So when I reached out to the AKC to say, "I'm doing this, you know, a long article about, um, dogs and go- you know, goldendoodles, but I'm looking to get both sides"- Right ... you'd think the AKC would at least talk to me. But they are so, like- like defensive and like just assume right away that anybody who's writing about doodles has [00:43:00] got nothing but bad things to say about the AKC that they, they wouldn't even speak to me.

I mean, not even off the record. It was just like, "We don't talk about doodles. We don't speak about doodles, period." Uh, and, and I just found that like here's an organization that's gone from, you know, like in the early '90s, like I don't, can't remember off the top of my head, but the number of registrations that they had in the early '90s compared to the number of registrations today has declined by two-thirds.

[00:43:33] Corinne: Hmm.

[00:43:33] John: You know, two-thirds fewer dogs are registered. Maybe people are getting purebreds and not registering them, but really they're just... It's really a, an organization in crisis, and part of the reason I think is they've gotten themselves into this box, you know, where like all this stuff has happened in the dog world with doodles that they have taken such a negative view of that they [00:44:00] can't...

So, you know, no doodles are, are, are breeds. Right. I mean, maybe one day they will be, but you know, think of all the registrations they would gain if they registered, uh... I mean, you're not gonna register the first generations maybe because the genetics are unpredictable. Mm-hmm. But we're in a world now where multi-gen doodles are very common.

You know- Yes ... Amy Lane only sells multi-gen doodles.

[00:44:25] Corinne: Yeah, with

[00:44:25] John: long life.

[00:44:26] Corinne: Yeah.

[00:44:26] John: Right. And these lines breed, these dogs are true bred. I mean, they breed true. There's not a lot of, you know, variation. So really they, they do have all the qualities of breeds. Amy Lane doesn't wanna be a part of the AKC, but you know, the Australian Labradoodles have, have made an effort to be registered.

Mm-hmm. And so I just feel like the AKC needs to kind of like reorient their mentality, uh, and get out of this defensive crouch they found themselves in. That was my experience anyway.

[00:44:59] Corinne: [00:45:00] That's fascinating, and part of why I exist is in the training world, people don't really talk about doodles or it's done so with disdain.

I have like a highly accredited dog training friend who confided in me, "I'm so glad you exist to work with doodles so I don't have to." And that's a common refrain. We talk about that kind of enthusiasm and exercise need, et cetera, and that some people think they're kind of plug and play, and their needs are a bit higher than that, than what some people expected.

For sure. But to just not entertain the conversation from AKC, that's really interesting.

[00:45:40] John: Just seems like it's, they're shooting themselves in the foot. Yeah.

[00:45:42] Corinne: Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for that insight. Is there anything else you feel like we should cover?

[00:45:48] John: No, I think that's, that's, that's it. I think we got it.

[00:45:52] Corinne: Wonderful. Thank you. I really enjoyed this article, and I'm glad Herman comes home, and this has been such a pleasure.

[00:45:59] John: All right, [00:46:00] Corinne, well, thanks for having me on the show. I really liked

[00:46:01] Corinne: it. Thank you so much. It's

[00:46:02] John: fun talking to you.

[00:46:03] Corinne: Wonderful, and I'll reach out to you once this is ready.

[00:46:06] John: Please. Okay.

Thank

[00:46:07] Corinne: you. All

[00:46:08] John: right. See ya. Sounds

[00:46:09] Corinne: great. Thank

[00:46:10] John: you. Bye. Bye.