Labradoodle Creator Says the Dog Breed Is His "Life's Regret"

In a recent interview with ABC, Wally Conron, who created the labradoodle dog breed by crossing a Labrador retriever with a poodle, says that the dogs are his “life’s regret” and he “hasn’t got a clue” why people continue to breed them.

Conron, who created the breed in 1989 in the hopes of getting “a dog with the working ability of the Labrador and the coat of the poodle,” said he’s concerned that a large number of copycat crossbreeds have resulted in health problems for dogs.

“I opened a Pandora’s box,” he told ABC. “I released a Frankenstein. These unethical, ruthless people — to breed these dogs and sell them for big bucks — that’s my big regret.”

“People are just breeding for the money,” he added. “Unscrupulous breeders are crossing poodles with inappropriate dogs simply so they can say they were the first to do it.”

Conron added that the majority of labradoodles he has encountered have some sort of health or behavioral problem. “I find that the biggest majority [of labradoodles] are either crazy or have a hereditary problem,” he said.

He said he knew almost immediately that breeding the labradoodle was a mistake and did his best to stop it from catching on.

“I realized what I’d done within a matter of days,” Conron told ABC. “And I went to our big boss at the time and I said to him, ‘Look, I’ve created a monster. We need to do something about it to control it. We need to put a patent on the name to stop people from getting on the bandwagon.’”

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