| Welcome to Bw Reads, our weekend newsletter featuring one great magazine story from Bloomberg Businessweek. Today's article is for the dogs. Or, um, about them. Allie Conti writes about the goldendoodles, labradoodles and bernedoodles that are suddenly everywhere—and big business too. You can find the whole story online here. You can also listen to it here. If you like what you see, tell your friends! Sign up here. On the first night of the 2024 goldendoodle conference, the breeders were out for pure blood. They'd come to a Radisson in Fort Worth, Texas, from suburbs across the US to eat Milk-Bone-dry sliders, throw back watery mixed drinks and take notes through two days of panels on everything from puppy socialization to post-whelping complications. The women—almost all the breeders were women—chatted about the best ways to acclimate doodle pups to the sounds of fireworks and ambulance sirens; debated the merits of Puppy Culture—a sort-of Baby Einstein program for dogs; and discussed whether something called Early Neurological Stimulation could stave off separation anxiety. There was certainly a lot to celebrate—sales were booming, and they'd helped propagate what sometimes seemed like the most popular pet on the planet. But they were also concerned that their inability to attain approval by the American Kennel Club, and therefore the breeding establishment writ large, meant that their infamously cute crossbred creations weren't so-called true breeds, a designation that could put a premium on them. The AKC, which has final say on what is and is not considered an official breed, recognizes around 200 purebreds, and the goldendoodle, a golden retriever-poodle hybrid, is not one of them. So, by 8 p.m., the conferencegoers resorted to something many are guilty of in these overheated times: They likened the people they disagreed with to Nazis. "It's just like Hitler and some of his concepts," says Shari Hall, president of the Goldendoodle Association of North America (GANA), an organization founded in 2008 that now has about 200 members. "People no longer care about the concept of blood purity. And it's not like you can just make the ultimate dog." (AKC spokesperson Brandi Hunter Munden expressed offense at the organization being compared to Nazis and noted it has a separate program for mixed breeds.)  Hall (second from left) with other doodle breeders in Colorado Springs in April. Photographer: Eli Imadali for Bloomberg Businessweek But the quest for the ideal dog is exactly what the business of doodles is about. Breeders have long been obsessed with dog optimization. They created the Labrador retriever in the Victorian era to help owners hunt. In Germany, also in the 19th century, a man who ran a local dog pound came up with the Doberman pinscher, thinking he could use more muscle at his other job—as a tax collector. But rather than breeding a dog that has a single utility for a subset of people, people engineered the goldendoodle and various other poodle-based hybrids—labradoodles, schnoodles, bernedoodles, cockapoos, on and on—as the ultimate pets for, well, everyone. PetMD deems their temperament a fit for cramped urban apartment dwellers, and insurance company MetLife Inc., in a pitch for pet insurance, claims they're just fuzzy-brained enough to withstand roughhousing from toddlers. They get rave reviews from DINKs (dual income, no kids), along with the kind of adults who uncomfortably refer to their animals as "fur babies." "Is anyone else's doodle practically a child?" someone recently asked in the goldendoodle subreddit, which has 114,000 members. The resounding answer: "What do you mean practically?" Then there's the influencer class, like Cliff Brush Jr. and his canine celeb Brodie, a goldendoodle with 7.2 million TikTok followers. Brush, a full-time content creator, brags that his almost-human companion, who flies first class, is always feted by star-struck flight attendants. "A lot of times they let us do preboarding and let him sit in the cockpit with a captain's hat," says Brush.  Benji in Manhattan Beach, California. Photographer: Sinna Nasseri for Bloomberg Businessweek The modern doodle was initially conceived of by Wally Conron, a breeder who worked for an Australian association for Seeing Eye dogs. He received a letter from a blind woman whose husband had a dog allergy, asking if he could create a hypoallergenic guide dog. After trying out 33 different poodles that didn't have the right temperament for the gig (poodles are famously independent-minded), he crossed one with an easygoing Lab. The experiment resulted in a full litter of what were then considered undesirable crossbreeds, so Conron came up with the catchy portmanteau that would soon ring out over dog parks from Adelaide to Zanesville: the labradoodle. Within a couple of decades, the AKC, which has always made the majority of its money through registering dogs as purebreds, saw its registrations starting to decline, in part, because of the doodle's usurping of the poodle. In 1990 there were 71,747 registered poodles; that number had dropped to a mere 21,545 by 2008—the last year the organization released this data. While these days doodles are seemingly everywhere—on sidewalks, in cafes, at dinner parties—calculating the size of the Doodle Economy remains surprisingly elusive. "We do know that much like any other part of material culture, there are trends," says Stephen Zawistowski, a former senior executive for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who holds a Ph.D. in animal genetics. "But we don't really have much statistics on any of this." Although there are now companies such as Pride & Prejudoodles, based in Virginia, charging more than $15,000 to deliver a fully trained doodle of "therapeutic quality," the average listing to buy one from a breeder is around $2,000. Factor in the cost of about $3,000 a year to maintain the animal, and it would put the industry easily north of a billion dollars. It's this kind of commercial frenzy that made Conron eventually call his doodle creation his life's greatest regret. "I opened a Pandora's box and released a Frankenstein's monster," Conron told ABC News Australia in 2019. Hours before the goldendoodle conference ended, Robert Westra, a bald, bushy-bearded veterinarian who at the time worked in marketing for the genetic testing company Neogen Corp., took the stage to lecture on the Punnett square, a kind of genetic diagram that shows possible combinations of traits that parents can pass to their offspring. It was a topic that would put any ninth-grade biology student to sleep, but the breeders were waving their phones in the air like they were at a Taylor Swift concert. That's because, according to Westra's calculations, their precious goldendoodle was mere generations away from becoming reliably replicable. Being able to produce dogs that are roughly the same in size, coat and temperament was the key in establishing new breeds. Doodles would soon look and act the same every time, making them even more easy to market and sell. "In the early 1900s we saw the largest expansion of dog breeds in history," Westra said. "And I think we're at this same point in time." By the time he declared the goldendoodle was bound to become an established breed—instantly increasing their value—the breeders were practically jumping out of their seats. Keep reading: How Doodles Became a Cutthroat Billion-Dollar Dog Industry  Lambo in a Mercedes in Manhattan Beach. Photographer: Sinna Nasseri for Bloomberg Businessweek |
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