49 Fun Facts About Goldendoodles

In Australia, goldendoodles are widely known by which shorter name?

Groodle. Australia has been coining 'oodle' names for Poodle crosses since 1989, when a guide-dog breeder in Victoria produced the first labradoodle litter.

The Obamas weighed a labradoodle before choosing which breed for the White House pet Bo?

Portuguese Water Dog. Bo was a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy, who kept the breed himself; one of the puppy's littermates was Kennedy's own dog, Cappy.

Finley the Golden Retriever set a Guinness World Record in 2020 by holding six of what in his mouth?

Tennis balls. Nobody trained him: Finley began trotting back from games of fetch with four at a time when he was two, and his sixth ball beat a record another Golden Retriever had held since 2003.

Which breed tops psychologist Stanley Coren's well-known ranking of dog intelligence, one place above the Poodle?

Border Collie. The Poodle came second and the Golden Retriever fourth, so a goldendoodle's two parent breeds both sit near the top for learning and obeying new commands.

The Golden Retriever breed originated in which country?

Scotland. For years the popular story was that the first dogs were bought from a Russian circus; the breeder's own leather-bound stud book, now kept at the Kennel Club, shows he bred them himself.

Designer dog names like "Schnoodle" are what kind of word?

Portmanteau. Lewis Carroll gave the word this sense: his Humpty Dumpty tells Alice that such a word packs two meanings into one, the way a portmanteau travelling bag packs clothes.

Dug, a Golden Retriever whose collar turns his thoughts into speech, appears in which Pixar film?

Up. Bob Peterson, who co-wrote the film, voiced Dug himself, and the dog later starred in his own run of Disney+ shorts, Dug Days.

What mainly decides a goldendoodle's adult size?

Poodle parent. Golden Retrievers come in a single size, so breeders shrink or enlarge the cross by choosing a smaller or larger variety of Poodle.

Bretagne, a Golden Retriever, was the last known surviving search dog from which disaster?

The September 11 attacks. She was two when she searched Ground Zero, and when she was put to sleep at 16, firefighters lined the path to the vet's door and saluted her.

What is the tuft left on the tip of a show Poodle's clipped tail called?

A pompon. The clip is said to have begun as working gear: hunters shaved the hindquarters so the dog could swim freely and left hair over the chest and leg joints to keep them warm in cold water.

Besides companionship, goldendoodles have been trained as what?

Therapy dogs. Unlike a service dog, which works for one person with a disability, a therapy dog visits hospitals, nursing homes and schools with a volunteer to comfort the people there.

Goldendoodles are often marketed with which disputed label?

Hypoallergenic. A 2012 study found the main dog allergen in the air was no lower in homes with so-called hypoallergenic breeds than in homes with other dogs.

Long associated with France, the Poodle is thought by most dog historians to have originated in which country?

Germany, on most accounts. Its name comes from the German Pudel, and German artists were painting Poodle-type water dogs by the 1600s; France took the breed to heart only later.

A Puggle is a cross between a Pug and which breed?

Beagle. The cross usually gets a longer muzzle than its flat-faced Pug parent, though vets warn that alone doesn't spare a Puggle the breathing troubles of short-nosed dogs.

What are goldendoodles bred from two goldendoodle parents called?

Multigenerational, or multigen for short. The goldendoodle breed club keeps its stud book open, so these dogs can still be bred back to the founding breeds to protect genetic diversity.

A goldendoodle's low-shedding coat comes with which catch for its owner?

It mats without regular brushing. Dead hair gets trapped in the curls instead of dropping out, so owners are told to brush several times a week and book a groomer every four to eight weeks.

Because of their loyalty, goldendoodle puppies are especially prone to what?

Separation anxiety. A doodle bonds so closely with its family that owners are advised not to leave it alone for long, and to lean on crate training, a sitter or a dog walker.

In which classic work does the devil follow a man home disguised as a black Poodle?

Faust. In Goethe's play the dog turns into Mephistopheles in the scholar's study, and Faust's cry, 'so that was the poodle's core!', became a proverb for the crux of a matter.

Why did the first labradoodles' breeder invent their catchy name and send it to the press?

Nobody wanted a crossbreed. 'It was a gimmick,' Wally Conron said: once the press heard of a new dog called the labradoodle, his guide-dog centre's switchboard was flooded with calls.

Looking back on the designer-dog craze, the first labradoodle's breeder said he had released which monster?

Frankenstein. Wally Conron also said he had 'opened a Pandora's box': he blames the craze for breeders who mate dogs for money without checking the parents' health.

Which US president's Golden Retriever, Liberty, had a litter of puppies in the White House?

Gerald Ford. His daughter Susan and the White House photographer arranged the eight-month-old puppy as a surprise for him in 1974, soon after he took office.

Which Poodle variety is generally thought to have come first?

Standard, on most accounts. The big hunters' dog is held to be the original, and smaller Poodles were bred down from it as the breed moved from the marsh to city homes and the circus ring.

The Poodle's name comes, via Pudel, from "pudeln", meaning what?

To splash. Pudel is short for Pudelhund, roughly 'splashing dog', probably because the breed began as a wildfowler's water dog, and the English word puddle is a relative.

The Poodle's classic Continental show clip takes which animal's name under FCI rules?

Lion. The clip shaves the hindquarters back to the ribs and leaves the front in full coat like a mane, and the trim is no free choice: FCI and AKC judges alike must throw out a Poodle shown in an unapproved clip.

Goldendoodle breeders prize 'furnishings', which give the dog what?

A beard and eyebrows. A single gene switches this facial hair on and also cuts shedding, so the goldendoodle club's breed rules class a dog without it as an 'incorrect coat'.

Which British prime minister doted on a Poodle named Rufus?

Winston Churchill. Cartoonists drew him as a bulldog, but his wartime companion was a brown Poodle, and when Rufus was killed by a car in 1947 he named the replacement Rufus too.

What did John Suter's sled teams of Poodles prompt Alaska's Iditarod race to do in the early 1990s?

Ban all but northern breeds. Suter ran several Iditarods with Poodles in harness, and in 1991 the race board ruled that only dogs such as huskies and malamutes could run, to protect breeds not built for the cold.

Goldendoodles have been trained to sniff out which allergen for children with severe allergies?

Nuts. A Texas trainer who began with drug-detection dogs switched to peanuts for a friend's allergic son, and favoured Poodle crosses because they shed less around children with asthma.

Heterosis in a first-generation crossbreed is better known by which name?

Hybrid vigor. Mixing two separate gene pools can mask each breed's harmful recessive genes, but the edge can fade when two crossbreeds are then bred together.

Which novelist crossed America with his Poodle for the 1962 travel book Travels with Charley?

John Steinbeck. The book was sold as the true story of a solo journey, but a reporter who later retraced the route concluded that much of it was invented.

Which novelist's great-granddaughter Monica crossed a Golden Retriever with a Poodle in 1969, long before goldendoodles caught on?

Charles Dickens. Monica Dickens was a novelist in her own right, and five years after her Poodle cross she founded the first American branch of the Samaritans, in Massachusetts.

In the 1997 film Air Bud, a stray Golden Retriever turns out to be a star at which sport?

Basketball. The film's success launched a whole franchise in which the dog takes up a new sport each time, starting with American football in Air Bud: Golden Receiver.

Deep-chested dogs such as large goldendoodles are at special risk of which emergency?

Bloat. The stomach fills with gas and can twist, cutting off its own blood supply, so a hard, swollen belly or retching that brings nothing up means a trip to the emergency vet at once.

In 2020's lockdown puppy boom, some Australian breeders asked up to what price for a goldendoodle?

A$15,000. One Adelaide Hills breeder said A$3,500 had been the usual price before lockdown buyers pushed some sellers to double it, and then double it again.

Which musician paid US$12,000 for a goldendoodle puppy at a 2012 charity auction?

Usher. He had been outbid for a puppy the year before, so this time he kept bidding until he beat an actress to the dog, and the money went to a charity that builds schools.

What official position does the Golden Retriever Club of America take on goldendoodles?

It opposes breeding them. The club's statement calls the goldendoodle 'nothing more than an expensive mongrel' and says it is particularly opposed to crossing Golden Retrievers with any other breed.

Sir Dudley Marjoribanks bred the first Golden Retrievers, but how is his surname traditionally pronounced?

Marchbanks. His fortune came partly from beer: he was a partner in London's Meux brewery, the site of the deadly London Beer Flood of 1814.

From 1913 to 1920 the Kennel Club registered Golden Retrievers under a name that also offered which colour?

Yellow. The breed was the 'Yellow or Golden Retriever' until 1920, a reminder that its founder had started from a single yellow puppy born in a litter of black retrievers.

Which breed ended the Poodle's long run as America's most registered dog in the early 1980s?

Cocker Spaniel. It was a comeback: the Cocker had already been America's top breed through the 1940s, a few years before Disney made one the heroine of Lady and the Tramp.

What does AKC Canine Partners let a mixed-breed goldendoodle do?

Compete in dog sports. The AKC, a club for purebreds, had turned 125 before it opened agility, obedience and rally to mixed breeds, though its breed ring stays closed to them.

What does 'parti' mean when breeders describe the coat of a Poodle or goldendoodle?

White with patches of colour. The United Kennel Club gives such Poodles show classes of their own, but in the AKC breed ring only solid coats are accepted and a parti is disqualified.

Shadow, a wise old Golden Retriever, sets out across country with a bulldog and a cat in which 1993 Disney film?

Homeward Bound. The animals talk in voice-over, with Don Ameche as Shadow and Michael J. Fox as the young bulldog Chance, in a remake of Disney's 1963 The Incredible Journey.

A 2019 survey found goldendoodles significantly outscored both parent breeds on which trait?

Aggression to other dogs. It was the one trait where owners scored the cross significantly above Golden Retrievers and both Poodle sizes; on most of the fourteen traits it landed between its parents.

Careful doodle breeders have both parents' joints tested for which disorder, common in retrievers and Poodles alike?

Hip dysplasia. The joint forms loosely while a puppy is still growing, so good breeders have both parents' hips tested and certified before they are ever mated.

Sultan, the first labradoodle guide dog, went to work for a blind woman living where?

Hawaii. Her husband was allergic to dog hair, so coat clippings and saliva from each of the three puppies were sent across the Pacific for testing, and Sultan's were the only ones he did not react to.

In 1935 Nunsoe Duc de la Terrace became the first Poodle to win Best in Show at which American dog show?

Westminster. The dog was a present from his owner's mother, and Hayes Blake Hoyt showed him in the ring herself, a novice up against the professional handlers of the day.

The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study enrolled 3,000 dogs to track for life, chiefly to find the causes of which disease?

Cancer. The breed is unusually prone to it, and for each dog owners and vets send in yearly reports and samples so researchers can look for causes in diet, genes and surroundings.

Though bred as a water retriever, the Poodle's two larger varieties compete at AKC shows in which group?

Non-Sporting Group. It is the AKC's catch-all, a mix of breeds of every size and background, so the old duck dog is judged alongside the Bulldog, not other retrievers.

What now stands at Guisachan, the estate where the first Golden Retrievers were bred?

The ruins of the mansion. The house was left to fall apart after 1939, yet hundreds of owners still bring their Golden Retrievers to gather in front of its roofless walls.