The Goldendoodle
Thursday, August 14th, 2008 by Mike CronkThe name Goldendoodle says it all. It is a hybrid dog–a first generation cross of the Golden Retriever and Standard Poodle. According to dog behaviorist Stanley Coran, Poodles are ranked 2nd and Goldens 4th in intelligence. The purpose of the cross was to take these two highly intelligent dogs and breed them for the best characteristics of each. The coat of the Standard Poodle is known to be hypoallergenic and non-shedding….combine that with the endearing personality of the Golden and you can get a pretty nice dog. This is the ideal.
Keep in mind that not every dog is representative of the breed(s!) standard. There are Goldens that are far too large in size, hyper in behavior and difficult to train. Due to their great popularity, some breeding is done just for the money with less attention devoted to maintaining good character and shape in puppies. Once again, back yard breeders damage breed genetics. In addition, there are no 100% guarantees as to how the Poodle-Golden genes will line up. You may get more of that long-legged Poodle shape and have a rather odd-looking dog…or you may get the Golden half of the shedding!
The Goldendoodles we have seen are very friendly, intelligent and calm. That double coat of the Golden is quite thick and requires weekly brushing–we definitely see this undercoat with the Goldendoodle. Don’t believe a breeder who tells you that since there’s Poodle in the mix, that a Goldendoodle doesn’t have any undercoat!
Below is a picture of Rascal Sanders during his brushout–note the hair on the table. No scissors were involved in that, it all came out of the brush. To the right is a picture of Rascal after his full groom including the bath and some trimming around the paws.
We encourage professional brushing and coat thinning at least every four weeks with a full body clip at 8 week intervals. If left natural, the coat typically grows to a length between 3-5 inches (but this may vary as those Poodle genes can have the hair growing out quite far). You can maintain this length with a good bi-weekly brushing, checked with a comb to the skin. If you choose to shorten the coat to an inch or so, home brushing won’t have to be so frequent. 
For the Goldendoodle haircut, we have done everything from 1/2 an inch up to 2 inches all over. Keep in mind that anything over 1 inch in length must be hand-scissored and costs more due to the time and skill required. We usually scissor the tails but keep them full. We scissor the faces full with a long beard but of course we can shorten or lengthen any area as you please. Ask about our Benji cut–it is a nice look.
To the right is Jazzy Sanders in a 2.5″ scissor cut. Looks great but be aware that it’s difficult to maintain. That’s a lot of brushing you need to do at home and if your dog comes in with matts–forget about it.