What’s in a name?

There’s a feature article in BBC News Magazine today about a recent “wave of interest” in crossbreeds with strange portmanteau names. I.e. Goldendoodle, Labradoodle, Cockapoo, Spoodle, Puggle, Jackhuahua, Poochon, etc, etc

We wish Mr. Wally Conron, from Australia’s Royal Guide Dog Association who supposedly bred the first Doodle cross – a labradoodle for a visually impaired woman who’s husband had a dog allergy wouldn’t be so apologetic for what he did – calling us now “Frankenstein” dogs.

He did many people a favour – besides creating mostly non-allergenic dogs to allow people with allergies the possibility of owning one, and lower risks genetic dogs without the inherited conditions, as well as taking away the stigma of the over groomed, over disguised bad hair poodle. Through the crossing, many humans had started to see all the tremendous characteristics of the poodle.  And now it seems we have outraged the Standard Poodle Club! Can’t please everyone, can we?

The article seems to imply that owners are drawn to the names – really? Are our humans all so naive and so easily drawn?  Wish they would look further into the qualities of the cross breeds and ask the owners why they chose to have a cross breed instead of the traditional breeds. But of course the comment that “A mongrel is simply a description for a non-pedigree do.” is made from someone at the Kennel Club – of course he would to protect their role in defining breeds.  This all sounds so suspiciously biased. Is the Kennel Club the only authority on the objective well being of dogs? Surely not.

The one line that popped out of the article was a mention about our Valentine’s Day Event at Gaucho’s – “One restaurant in Hampstead in north London recently had a “Cockapoo Doggie Sunday” for charity, which was attended by 44 of the dogs and their owners.”

May’s comment:  Apparently, insurers Petplan have seen a 400% increase in policies taken for Cockapoos in the past five years. And both the Labradoodle and Cockapoo are close to the top 10 of new policies each year.  Surely, not every person got these dogs because of the names – it’s because of the qualities that they bring.

And of course the cockapoos are one crazy dog that you can’t help but love.