Beverly Breed History

THE ART OF DEVELOPING A BREED

BREEDING DOGS IS EASY……. OR IS IT?

THE original crossing of a Labrador Retriever and Standard Poodle carried out by the Guide Dog Center in Melbourne Australia was a mixed blessing at best. From the first litter produced, only one of the three puppies had any degree of allergy friendliness and even Sultan the one who was selected for work as a Guide Dog, was a shedding coated dog.

However the level of success achieved, was enough to inspire Angela Wetzel (later to become Angela Cunningham) with a vision. Here was an opportunity to work at developing a brand new breed of dog without the usual constraints of kennel club breeding mandates. Angela discussed her idea with her mother, Beverley Manners (then Beverley Wetzel) and before long both women were excited about the possibilities.

With a lifetime history behind them both, of breeding, training, and showing several different breeds of dog, and Beverley’s past holding of a dog judging license, they decided that between them they had the experience and knowledge to take on the challenge.

The early strains of the Labrador x Poodle in Australia produced very large sized dogs, who were often hard headed hyperactive individuals with minds of their own. The intelligence was there, but when combined with a willful easily distracted nature, many of the early dogs did not make the best family pets. As new breeders began to spring up, attracted by the popularity of the Tegan Park and Rutland Manor dogs, there was a flood of Lab x Poodles finding their way to shelters and euthanasia due to their families being unable to control them.

By the mid 1990’s although the two Australian breeding and research centers had begun to achieve more consistency in the correct allergy friendly non shedding coat of the developing breed, yet the willful over active temperament remained in too many of the offspring. This was a feature which needed more work if the breed was to reach its founders’ vision of a sound and healthy dog which would be suitable as a therapy and service dog as well as a superlative family dog for people who suffered from dog related allergies.

The sharing of a number of hereditary diseases by Poodle and Labrador was already a major concern and it was apparent that continuing to develop the Labradoodle using only these two breeds may be courting disaster health wise, and would almost certainly lead to the genetic dead end which already plagued the majority of ‘pure’ breeds.

It was during one of the many meetings that Breed founders Angela Cunningham and her mother Beverley Manners held to discuss the future direction of the Labradoodle, that it dawned on them that if another breed were introduced, it could serve a twofold and beneficial purpose.

It was important that progress already made with coat consistency must not be lost, but they reasoned that if another carefully chosen ‘pure’ breed were introduced at that particular point of development, the gene pool would also be widened at just the right time and with the least significant chances of introducing new diseases or increasing the predisposition of new ones. Introducing an infusion from another breed at the wrong time can destroy years of past work, so timing is crucial and many factors come into play when making decisions on which breed to infuse, and/or on its timing.

After much laborious research, the chosen breed for the infusion was the Irish Water Spaniel.

It was particularly interesting to discover that the Irish Water Spaniel had only five congenital and genetic diseases that were found with greater than average frequency in the breed when compared to the 41 found in Labrador Retrievers, the 31 in the Standard Poodle and the 39 in the Miniature Poodle.

Complementing this choice of breed on health standards, was the fact that many of its attributes in character and temperament were aligned with the desired attributes of the Australian Labradoodle.

Reference: http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/irishwaterspaniel.htm

Congenital and Genetic Conditions found with greater than average frequency in the Irish Water Spaniel

Reference: http://www.qualitydogs.com/Irish_Water_Spaniel/information.html

Congenital and Genetic Conditions found with greater than average frequency in the Labrador Retriever

Reference: http://www.qualitydogs.com/Labrador_Retriever/information.html

Congenital and Genetic Conditions found with greater than average frequency in the Poodle

Reference: http://www.qualitydogs.com/Poodle/information.html

Congenital and Genetic Conditions found with greater than average frequency in the Miniature Poodle

Reference: http://www.qualitydogs.com/Miniature_Poodle/information.html

When researching the hereditary diseases shared by Labrador, Poodle and Miniature Poodle, it is easy to see why the founders of the Australian Labradoodle chose to strictly limit the use of Miniature Poodles in their downsizing breeding programs when the public demand for Miniature Australian Labradoodles became too great to dismiss.

When several generations of selective breeding of the smallest Australian Labradoodles to o ther smallest Australian Labradoodles failed time after time to produce consistency in sizes of puppies within the one litter, it was decided that it was time to infuse another smaller breed. This time, the Cocker Spaniel was chosen. The choice between American or English Cocker was a difficult one to make, as both have suffered at the hands of over popularity and inexperienced or uncaring breeders who had bred the original merry temperament right out of both breeds. It was exceedingly difficult to find a line of

Cockers which not only had retained the true cheerful child friendly nature originally a hallmark of both breeds, but which had also maintained an adequate health status over many generations.

References: THE PRICE OF FAME….COCKER SPANIEL

http://www.mycockerspaniel.com/history.htm

http://www.petpublishing.com/dogken/breeds/cocker.shtml

Article contributed by Beverly Manners
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