When you begin your search for a goldendoodle puppy, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the shear volume of breeders. How do you identify a good, reputable breeder, especially when so many aren’t? Here are five questions you can ask to help you narrow down which breeders to consider.
- What health testing have the parent dogs received and can I see the results?
- What kinds of structured enrichment do your puppies receive?
- In what ways do you seek to produce puppies who will live long, healthy lives? How do you promote longevity for your puppies?
- Have you ever removed a dog from your breeding program? If so, for what reasons?
- When will we be able to meet the parents? How do you work to produce puppies with good temperaments?
We’ll walk through the answers you should expect to receive to each question in detail. We’ll also explore why the answer to these three common questions is a resounding NO!
- Are all GANA Blue ribbon breeders reputable? Nope!
- Does a health guarantee mean a breeder is reputable? Nope!
- I found a list of reputable doodle breeders. Can I trust the list? Nope!
Buckle up, you’re in for a detailed ride! By the end you’ll be well equipped to evaluate whether a breeder is ethical (and your eyes might also be a little tired- sorry about the length, there’s just so much to tell you!)
1. What health testing have the parent dogs received and can I see the results?
Choose a responsible breeder who health tests the parent dogs. You should expect to see hip results as well as genetic testing at a minimum. Heart, knees (patella luxation), eyes (CAER exam), and elbows are additional tests available that ideally should be done on both parents. Ask to see the health testing results. Just because a dog has undergone health testing doesn’t mean the dog passed the health testing. And a veterinarian checking hips and elbows for an obvious sign of dysplasia is not the same as having hip and elbow x-rays examined by canine orthopedic experts.
- Passing hip scores include: fair, good & excellent for OFA and DI <0.5 for both hips for the PennHip test (lower DI is better)
- Passing knee scores: no evidence of patella luxation (grade 1 patella luxation means the dog did NOT pass)
- CAER: both eyes should be “normal.” Sometimes the ophthalmologist will note something that isn’t hereditary, which is fine. Ideally, the test should be done within the past 2 years and ideally this eye exam is performed by an animal ophthalmologist
2. What kinds of structured enrichment do your puppies receive?
Enrichment is essential for producing stable, well-rounded dogs. Enrichment means introducing puppies to a variety of sights, sounds, smells, and other stimuli. Puppies should also meet a variety of different people during their time with the breeder to help prepare them to be stable adults. Enrichment must be intentional and structured. Scary experiences can leave a lasting negative impact, so avoid a breeder who haphazardly includes puppies in daily activity and doesn’t appear to understand the stages of puppy development. Instead, pick a breeder who implements a structured and incremental enrichment based on the developmental level of the puppies. Some breeders follow a set program such as Puppy Culture and AviDog. Others have developed their own enrichment program. It’s great if a breeder does early neurological stimulation (aka ENS or super dog) with the puppies, but ENS does NOT qualify as or replace structured enrichment. You should avoid a breeder who haphazardly “socializes” puppies. For instance, allowing young children to play unsupervised with puppies or push puppies around in a baby stroller could accidentally permanently imprint puppies with a fear of children. Enrichment should be intentional and the breeder should have an understanding of the stages of puppy development.
Watch our YouTube videos and read through our litter updates to familiarize yourself with some of the components of intentional puppy rearing.
3. In what ways do you seek to produce puppies who will live long, healthy lives? How do you promote longevity for your puppies?
At first this question may seem unnecessary after having already inquired about health testing. And yes, health testing is an important component of setting puppies up to live long, healthy lives. But for the most part, health testing only tests for orthopedic issues and autosomal recessive diseases. While you definitely want to seek out a breeder who invests the money to health testing parent dogs, there are many other factors that can sadly lead to a premature death. Those factors will vary from breed to breed, so spend time investigating the top causes of death for Bernese Mountain dogs, Labrador retrievers or border collies if you plan to purchase a bernedoodle, labradoodle or bordedoodle. For goldendoodles, cancer is the ugly beast we want to do our best to avoid. There are very high incidences of cancer among golden retrievers in America and sadly many die by age 8. A responsible breeder will make a conscious effort to promote longevity.Everyone wants their beloved dog to live a long, healthy life. A responsible breeder shares that same goal. Efforts to produce long lived puppies will look different from breeder to breeder but here are some examples:
- Researching dogs in the pedigree for longevity and cancer.
- Researching dogs in the pedigree for orthopedic issues (i.e. hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, patella luxation).
- Using older parent dogs. Breeding parents who are at least a few years old allows time for health problems to arise. Most 1 year old dogs are very healthy but by 5 years of age, health problems may have arisen. This doesn’t mean breeding a 9 year old mama! But it could mean breeding a 9 year old stud. In fact, some research indicates that using older studs can help puppies have a longer life expectancy.
- Choosing not to expose puppies to unnecessary radiation for a puppy count. There is no evidence that it’s safe to expose developing puppy fetuses to x-rays. Research indicates that exposing a developing human baby to x-rays could increase that baby’s risk of cancer, and it’s possible that the same applies to other mammals like dogs.
- Giving parent dogs wholesome care. Research indicates that the care and nutrition a mama receives both before and during pregnancy can impact the pups. Even giving a mama belly rubs during pregnancy can help her babies have more laid back temperaments.
This is not an exhaustive list of ways to promote longevity nor will any one breeder employ all of these strategies. A responsible breeder will consider longevity as a factor when choosing parent dogs. Ask a breeder you are considering about longevity and see whether a long life for their pups is a priority,
4. Have you ever removed a dog from your breeding program? If so, for what reasons?
The answer “yes” to this question is a good thing! If a someone has been breeding dogs for any length of time, they’ve undoubtedly encountered a dog who seemed hopeful as a puppy but didn’t mature into the kind of superior dog necessary for breeding. Avoid a breeder who says all of the dogs they produce are show or breeding quality. No breeder, no matter how experienced, consistently breeds perfect dogs. If fact, no dog is perfect. And any breeder who claims that their dogs are perfect is guilty of “kennel blindness” and should be avoided at all costs.
It’s normal for a breeder to remove a potential parent dog from their breeding program for reasons such as: failing health testing, undesirable personality traits or poor structure. Breeders invest much money and time in raising hopeful dogs with the goal of one day using them for breeding. An ethical breeder will not let this investment influence them into breeding a sub-par dog.
On the other hand, not every breeder who has not removed a dog from their breeding program should be avoided. A small breeder may have never have needed to make the difficulty decision to remove a dog. A large breeder with lots of breeding dogs likely will have encountered a dog who didn’t meet the high standard necessary for becoming a mama or papa.
5) When will we be able to meet the parents? How do you work to produce puppies with good temperaments?
I regularly receive emails from families who have taken home poodle-mix puppies from other breeders who turned out to be aggressive. A dog trainer friend called me a few weeks ago in frustration about the influx of aggressive doodles. Starting with good parent dogs is huge, and you should be able to meet at least the mama dog, but preferably both parents. It doesn’t hurt to meet both ahead of time before you commit to buying a puppy. If the breeder has a Facebook group, join and message different members to find out about their dog’s temperament and whether they’ve encountered any personality problems.
One mark you can look for in regards to temperament is the Canine Good Citizen (CGC) title. CGC is a temperament test that involves a variety of exercises such as the dog walking nicely past other dogs, allowing a stranger to pet it, etc. Several of our parent dogs have their Canine Good Citizen titles and the ones that don’t will get it eventually.
Other mark is for a good temperament is successful coexistence with small children. Abria, Moses, and Maple live in our home with four young children and ZuZu lives in our neighbor’s home with 3 children. While Canine Good Citizen is great, being able to handle constant poking, prodding hugging, coloring (our kids love to decorate our dogs with hair chalk), etc. from children is an even better testament of true character then a short one time evaluation like the Canine Good Citizen. You can find numerous pictures on our Instagram of our dogs with little people.
In addition to avoiding inbreeding and ensuring our parent dogs have good temperaments, we work with the puppies in a structured way, as discussed in question 2. I’ve talked to breeders who allow their 4 year old child to push puppies around in a toy grocery cart and call that socialization. That is NOT the kind of socialization you want because it can actually damage puppies. We want puppies to have intentional, safe, positive experiences. You don’t want puppies to be left to themselves in a pen for 8+ hours a day while no one is home. We works hard to expose the puppies to many different people, objects, sounds, experiences, etc. so they can mature into well rounded adults. But puppies only live with the breeder for 8-9 weeks. The continuation of the socialization process is left in the hands of the new families when the puppies leave our home. We encourage everyone to develop a puppy experience plan so you have a thought out process of how to continue exposing your puppy to different situations in a positive way. We also encourage several fun games that target creating positive emotional responses in the dog when you take something from their mouth and so forth. Better yet, join Baxter & Bella and they’ll hand you the puppy experience plan, give you educational games to play with your puppy, and provide you with a myriad of resources. If the current pandemic status allows for it, we also strongly encourage an in-person puppy socialization class.
No one can completely predict every dog’s temperament but please choose a breeder who works hard to set each puppy and each family up for a successful lifelong friendship. I encourage you to read through the blog post for one of our recent litters to get a feel for what we do with the puppies during their time with us and what education we provide to puppy buyers.
Selecting the right breeder
These 5 questions aren’t a fool-proof method for finding the perfect breeder. But asking these 5 questions will help you assess whether the breeder you are considering is ethical and responsible. If you have any hesitations, choose someone else. Don’t rush into putting down a deposit without being confident that the breeder employs breeding practices you want to support. A dog is a long-term commitment and you want to ensure your new furry family member is set up for the best potential in life. Likewise, you do not want to financially support a breeder who sees dogs as an income source and does not properly care for them. Please choose your breeder carefully!
FAQs
Are all GANA Blue Ribbon Breeders reputable breeders?
No! A blue ribbon from the Goldendoodle Association of North America (aka GANA) indicates that the breeder does health testing on parent dogs, but that’s as far as the blue ribbon status goes. GANA does not take any other factors into consideration. While doing health testing is phenomenal and should be performed by all breeders, that alone does not mean a breeder is truly reputable. Some “blue ribbon” may not investigate their lines or may not do structured enrichment with their puppies. It’s important to ask questions to determine whether a breeder is reputable. Do not just go solely off of a status the breeder claims or logo on their website.
Does a health guarantee indicate a reputable breeder?
Many breeders use a health guarantee to secure some additional income for themselves without truly providing protection to puppy buyers. A large number of goldendoodle breeders who offer a health guarantee:
- Only guarantee against life threatening illness and severe hip dysplasia (not mild dysplasia)
- Only refund the money if the dog is returned
- The guarantee is often contingent on the puppy owner feeding their dog NuVet or another supplement/food (i.e. Life’s Abundance, Paw Tree, etc.) for which the breeder receives compensation.
This arrangement gives puppy owners a false sense of security that truly isn’t there because it is unlikely that someone will actually return a puppy they’ve grown to love over the past year.
Also keep in mind that there is a difference between congenital and genetic. While congenital conditions are problems that puppies are born with, they’re not necessarily inherited but rather could be something that happened abnormally during development. Health guarantees usually only cover genetic issues and not congenital.
Look for a breeder that has puppies checked by a practicing licensed veterinarian. We have the puppies checked by Dr. Steffen at Companion Animal Medical Centre in Milford, OH. She checks for cardiac murmurs, listens to breath sounds, and so forth to find congenital issues that may be present, although others could potentially present themselves years down the road. Also look for a breeder who genetically test parents for diseases known to impact the breed.
I found a list of reputable doodle breeders. Can I trust the list? How do I know whether they truly are reputable?
Keep in mind that most lists of supposedly reputable breeders make money from people paying to be on that list. It’s paramount that you ask each breeder questions to determine whether they truly are reputable. The “reputable breeder lists” are out to make money and do not have the best interest of buyers in mind. You may find a great breeder on a list, but you also may find a terrible one who is using the traffic from paying to be on a list of “reputable goldendoodle breeders” to sell more puppies.