Our Labradoodle is the best dog we've ever had. She'll run, jump, fetch, as long as you like but is happy to lay around and be lazy too. Easy to train and perfectly obedient. Loves to ride in the back seat of the Mooney. She never needs a leash regardless of what we're doing or where we are. Not spooked by anything. The poodle in her means a hypoallergenic coat that doesn't shed. She's standard size and can get in and out of the convertible without opening the door. I just say "let's go" and she'll trot over to the car and easily jump in clearing the door and drivers seat to her side. Very athletic and agile without the need to constantly be working.
Side topic: My pup apparently has had some kind of trauma involving a Doodle or similar. The folks at the doggy day care have to keep him and another giant Doodle who I've met and is a perfectly sweet dog and good temperament, separated throughout the day.
Since it's my pup who initiates dominance games and light growling, he usually gets the longest "time out" in a room off of the main play area if the doodle is there that day. The staff have helped us out with desensitizing him to other "curly" dogs and he gets along with them fine, but something about the giant doodle intimidates him or frightens him. It'd take a lot more desensitization work than they can offer, obviously. Very odd.
His other significant weirdness is if he's on the bed and a foot comes toward him while under the covers, he emits a serious growl and leaves. All you have to do is wiggle a foot. We don't know if it's triggering a prey reaction or he got kicked by accident while someone was sleeping, but neither of us move that much sleeping. Has to be something that happened to him in the past if it's a frightened behavior.
Sure scared the hell out of me the first time I moved my foot toward him. Thought either someone was in the house or he was about to chomp my foot. LOL.
They all have their interesting idiosyncrasies, that's for sure.
But I like doodles. Never had one but all I've met have been well-behaved and smart enough to train, and good tempered dogs. This poor giant doodle at the day care just ignores our pup for the most part. He will eventually get annoyed and bark/snap just to say, "Leave me alone you idiot!" but he's pushed to get to that point.
(The staff showed me a video. There are a lot of Prima-Donna owners who bring their dogs there who get upset if their dog is not out in the main area playing and "getting their money's worth", crap like that... So they showed me what was happening. When the doodle owner and I met in the lobby one evening the staff looked concerned until I explained that it was my pup who was the idiot and petted the doodle for five minutes and talked to the owner to let her know I was 100% cool with the staff keeping our boy away from her boy.)
He's a good pup.
Whatever our doofus' problem is with him, we haven't figured out yet.
If we had the time and space on neutral ground, I would love to work with the doodle owner on moving them slowly together and away... And a little closer together... And away... Eventually seeing if they'd accept each other for a Pack walk. But it'll probably never happen.
