ALD, Australian Labradoodle

The ALD, Australian Labradoodle is different than the run of the mill doodle. In Australian they are known as the Cobber dog (the friend dog).  Whats the difference? Pedigree and strict health testing requirements from our registries, and TEMPERAMENT. Australian Labradoodles aren't F1 or F2 or double doodles like many goldendoodles, cockapoos or labradoodles and so on.  ALDs have been around since the early 1980s, and have registries for multiple generations. And like any established breed they were made for a purpose. Australian Labradoodles were created for the purpose of being hypoallergenic therapy and service dogs. Wally Conron created the ALD for service dogs. Although Wally Conron is considered to be the father of the breed, his main work was always as an educator for therapy and assistance dogs. We keep this purpose going in selecting our bloodlines. Many of our dogs come from therapy parents and can be traced back to original Australian lines like Tegan Park, Rutland, and more.

Our girl Tiffany our now-retired girl is a service dog, and our boy Ozzie comes from two service dog parents; Gracie is a vestibular balance mobility dog.  Service or therapy temperament and an allergy-friendly coat are key traits to the Australian Labradoodle. We also had an amazing opportunity to have all of our previous dogs and litters evaluated by an AKC judge, Pat Hastings, to bring us structural uniformity and temperament testing.  Sadly, she passed away fall of 2022. We keep her high standards with our litter and evaluate each of our litters at +-3 days of 8 weeks. Our boy Ozzie scored a 19/19.5 with Pat at 8 weeks old. A photo of him be evaluated is below. During evaluations, we look for correct angulation from shoulder to front paws, from tail set to front of back toes. Overall nice topline for no roaching, smooth shoulders, and head fully set above topline. We check bites; brisket, eye shape oval or round are accepted by Parent registries; I prefer the rounded doe eyes with minimal white showing when puppy looks at you flipped on its back. (Love Pat, but she always marked my pups down; she wanted almond eyes). We want the muzzle to be the same length or slightly longer than the distance from stop to back top of skull. We also check rear legs angulation, hocks, tail set and shape. These things we have been trained to look at with Pat Hastings for over 8 years with every litter of ours and my moms at Moonlit Acres. We understand no dog is perfect on all of these things but we keep the best of all of these things from litters with the majority having consistency of same structure as our future breeding dogs. We will try to keep Pat's legacy in mind with every litter evaluation.

The ALD has three recognized sizes: miniature, medium, and standard. All sizes are based on height to the withers (shoulders). Gracie is our only dog considered a small standard-size Australian Labradoodle in our program. Most of our dogs are in the medium range. When I do breed minis, I stay at 15" or above to the withers. I tend to see temperament changes in the smaller minis, and I have not decided if it's because of the toy poodles or the way the dogs are treated like forever puppies. They are cute like forever puppies, but aren't a part of our breeding program; for me it goes away from the temperaments we're focused on.

•  Miniature Height: 12" to less than 17" to the withers

• Medium Height: 17" to less than 21" to the withers

• Standard Height 21 to 28" to the withers

Australian Labradoodles, if brought into your family, will be your best friend for every moment of their beautiful life. Many times we hear from our dog families that their ALD would rather be with them than with other dogs. That is very true for this breed. Our girl River would rather snuggle us or go for a car ride than play with other dogs. River has mothered 9 service dogs, true temperament to the breed standard. Tiffany as of retirement mothered 15 puppies in training for or are active service dogs, and Luna has had 4, Gracie has had 2 so far, and Shelby had 1 from her first litter. Granted, ALD will play and get along with dogs just fine, but their preference is to be with their human.

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Here are a few links to breed standards and below are stacked photos of some of our dogs being evaluated at 8 weeks old.

WALA Breed History

Breed Standards

Coat Types

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