Doodle on my Heart
A Blue Ridge Mountain Journey with an Unforgettable Dog
You know that perfect dog from your childhood?
The one that did everything right, was intensely loyal and loved you more than anything?
I had a dog like that once.
This is not the story of that dog.
© 2018-2026 Susan J. Kroupa All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: How Not to Get a Puppy, Part One
I stand in the biting November wind cradling a warm lump of curly black fur in my arms. It’s unusually cold, even for late fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the sky’s uncharacteristic drab gray makes everything look a bit bleak. Behind us, stands a modest farm house, and behind it, an old barn that has been converted to kennels, from which rises a cacophony of barking and howling. My husband shivers beside me as the breeder, a tall woman with short, salt and pepper hair and a friendly smile, tells us about previous puppies she’s placed.
“We have one in Waco, Texas, and several in Pembroke, from this group of puppies. Daisy is doing agility in Pennsylvania and Sketch has just gotten his therapy dog papers in Norfolk. Brady is still in Maine taking care of his family and Oscar is in Weisbatten, West Germany doing things at the US Army base there.”
She beams at us, proud of her dogs, even though she’s confessed that she’s having to give them away now, because of the economy. The two puppies in the sagging, two-stall shed beyond the house don’t look like future therapy dogs. Muddy, and according to my husband, stinky, they’re busy pawing into the half-full bag of Ol’Roy, ripped open to the food line.
“Do you only have the two?” I ask. I’ve done enough reading about labradoodles to know that unless the pups have labradoodle ancestry going back for multiple generations, some puppies can favor the Labrador retriever and some the poodle side of the gene pool. We are definitely after the poodle side, but the two puppies in front of me both have the straighter coats and broader noses of a Labrador.
“No, we have a few more. They’re down in the gully. There’s an old deer carcass there they like to chew on.” She dispatches her son, who is maybe around twelve or thirteen, to go retrieve the rest. Thin, silent, and almost withdrawn, he gives no indication of whether he’s happy we might take a puppy or whether he resents our presence. While we wait, stomping our feet against the toe-numbing cold, I remember the advice, culled from countless books and websites, on how to get a new puppy.
- If you are buying a puppy, choose a reputable breeder, one who has done extensive genetic testing and careful breeding to insure the health of the pups.
- If you are rescuing a pup, do your research in advance as to what size, coat, and energy level will be compatible with your lifestyle.
- Get a puppy in the late spring or early summer when the weather is mild, because with any new puppy (except the smallest of breeds) you’re going to be spending a lot of time outdoors.
- Don’t judge a puppy by its coat or color, but by its personality and energy level.
- If possible, meet both the pup’s parents. See what type dispositions they have.
- Pick a relaxed time when you can play with the puppies and watch them interact to find the one best suited to your lifestyle.
- Take your time. Don’t make a rushed decision as the pup you pick will be with you for a long time.
There are, of course, more things to consider, but you get the idea. So here I am, at the beginning of winter, looking for a pup that will have the coat of a poodle, from a backyard breeder. How is it possible that I’m pretty much breaking every rule in the book? In every book?
Chapter 2: Dreaming of Doodles
Labradoodle lust is the only way I can explain it. I had wanted a labradoodle ever since I first began reading about Australian labradoodles a few years earlier, but knew I could never afford one. Back then, when I first started gazing adoringly at photos of labradoodle puppies, the breed, or rather hybrid, wasn’t as easy to find as it is today, where often unscrupulous or at least sketchy practices by amateur breeders hoping to make a quick buck on the breed-mix du jour—aussiedoodles, goldendoodles, schnauserdoodle (schnoodles), etc.—have flooded the market and sometimes the animal shelters with “designer dogs” of unproven health histories and personality traits.
But initially, designer dogs came out of a practical desire to create non-shedding and mostly hypoallergenic service dogs. Developed by Wally Conron (beginning in 1989) Australian Labrador retrievers (generally calmer and smaller than American Labrador retrievers) were crossed with standard poodles. These dogs were designed to be service dogs for people who are allergic to golden retrievers, German shepherds and other typical service breeds. The goal was to pair a non-shedding, more hypoallergenic coat (i.e., a poodle’s coat) with a service-dog personality (i.e. a Labrador retriever.)
The first cross, called an F1, has a Labrador retriever and a poodle parent. F2 puppies are the offspring of F1 labradoodles, F3, the offspring of F2, and so on. Fn labradoodles, registered with the Australian Labradoodle Association of America, have at least an F6 background. The more labradoodle (rather than individual poodles or Labrador retrievers) in a puppy’s ancestry, the more the pup will conform to what are now the standards of the Australian Labradoodle Association of America. That means you playing the lottery with an F1 as to whether or not a pup will have a coat that sheds, but not so much with an Fn.
(Note to anyone who might be foolish enough to read this blog as advice: there are no breeds that have a truly hypoallergenic coat. The fact that poodles don’t shed makes them less of an allergen to many people than other breeds. But if you happen to have allergies, check to make sure you aren’t allergic to labradoodles—as some people are—before investing in one.)
At this point, you might think, “Hey, poodles already have the (mostly) hypoallergenic, non-shedding coat. Why go to all the trouble to create a hybrid?”
Because poodles, with their quick intelligence and their independence are not always the most biddable dogs. Biddable, in dog training terms, means compliant, tractable, easily led or taught.
Smart, yes. Clever, definitely. Self-esteem? Can we say entitled? In fact, poodles have so much self-esteem that they often don’t see the need to take advice or instruction from the humans in their life. While some poodles can be biddable, many are more independent than the breeds most often used as service dogs.
So the Labrador part of the labradoodle equation was to make the breed more user-friendly. The Mac version rather than the PC. Or the PC version rather than the Linux, depending upon your software biases. That’s what Wally Conron was looking for in 1989 when he began crossing the two breeds in search of a hypoallergenic service dog.
(Conron has stated in recent years that he now regrets starting the whole designer-dog trend. “There are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs out there,” he said in 2014, referring to all puppy mills spawned by the designer dog craze.)
So, labradoodles were supposed to be calm, clever, non-shedding, biddable, probably hypoallergenic, and—an added bonus—cute. Really cute. As I said, what’s not to like?
But there was one teensy problem: cost.
Like designer clothes, designer dogs carry a hefty price tag, one that didn’t fit into our semi-retired lifestyle budget. $1000-$2000 for a puppy? Excuse me while I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes.
Which is how we ended up on a bitter afternoon at a run-down kennel that less charitable people might have called a puppy farm.
Chapter 3: How Not to Get a Puppy, Part Two
It all started innocently in 2006, when, daydreaming about owning a labradoodle, I did a web search for labradoodle breeders in the area. I lived in Southwestern Virginia, a place my daughter calls “the middle of freakin’ nowhere” so by “area” I meant anywhere in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia.
To my surprise, I found a place not terribly far from where we live. A few weeks later, at a local vet’s office, I saw a photo of a handsome dog—Labrador-like but with wacky hair. The caption underneath advertised labradoodles and gave a phone number. It was the same place from my web search. Was that meant to be or what?
I called and talked to a very nice lady, whom I’ll call Nancy. Yes, she had labradoodles, and the puppies were sooo cute! I ought to drop by and play with them sometime. Could I come this Saturday?
This was in May or June. Being a writer and prone to flights of imagination, I pictured myself sitting on a bank of green lawn shaded by towering trees as fat curly coated pups climbed onto my lap, and gently licked my fingers. A breeze cooled my face and, well, you get the picture.
“Our next dog should be a labradoodle,” I told Tom, floating the idea. “They don’t shed, and they don’t have as strong an odor as hounds.”
Tiyo, our old hound/German shepherd mix, had pretty much been an odor and shed monster since we adopted him from a shelter eleven years before.
“No hair to vacuum up!” I added, trying to seal the deal.
I came back to earth with a crash when the woman said she was offering her pups for a bargain. Only $500, due to the poor state of the economy.
Our personal economy, evidently in even a poorer state, had no room in the budget for an extra dog, especially, as the spouse put it, a $500 yuppie dog. Not with poor Tiyo, our hound/German shepherd mix racking up vet bills as his age increased and his joints deteriorated. I thanked her, begged off, and hardly gave it another thought. [Now, in 2018, $500 would be a bargain for any purebred dog, and a steal for labradoodles who often cost more than $2000. This is a sore point for many breeders of purebred dogs, who think all, or at least most, doodle breeders are little more than puppy mills producing “mutts.” More on this later.]
Hardly a thought, but the daydreams continued.
A year and a half later, as it became clear that Tiyo wouldn’t be with us much longer and we were already beginning to grieve in advance—because Tiyo, odor and shed-challenged as he was, had been a loving and loyal companion—I went back to the website. This time I noticed the dates on the photos of puppies for sale were still from 2006.
I emailed Nancy again asking if she still had labradoodles and, if so, how much did they cost? She answered, “Due to the economy, we can’t sell our babies. So we are giving them away. They need homes more than we need money and they are costing us a lot to feed them.”
Can I honestly say I didn’t read a thin line of desperation hiding underneath her words? If so, I was too excited to think about it. We made arrangements to see the puppies on the weekend.
Now, as my husband and I stand by the barn, waiting for her son to bring the rest of the puppies up from the deer carcass down by the creek, that line of desperation is thick and visible. Three poodle-like female dogs, teats drooping, watch us from a distance, their eyes suspicious, and their heads low. Not one comes up to be petted. They look like sheep who have been in a bizarre shearing accident. Matted hair hangs in wool-like clumps over scraggly coats.
“Those are the mothers,” Nancy says, following my gaze. She shakes her head. “It’s just impossible to keep their coats good when they’re nursing. No amount of grooming can keep up with it.”
It’s hard to believe any amount of grooming has touched those coats in some time. “And they’re all labradoodles?” I ask. In her email, Nancy had said the pups were F2 labradoodles, which would mean they’d have labradoodle parents. “Maggie over there is a standard poodle. The other two are labradoodles,” she says. I study Maggie, trying to see more poodle in her than in the other two, but to my eyes they all look pretty much alike.
Her son returns from the creek behind the barn carrying two puppies. When he sets them down, they show no interest whatsoever in us, busy hopping around the bag of Ol’ Roy or piling up against the other pups who are napping. I begin to worry that they haven’t been properly socialized. “How old are they?” I ask. Nancy tells us they are about eleven weeks old. My fears about improper socialization intensify.
According to many dog experts, the time from weaning, around 8 weeks, to about 12 weeks form a magical window in a puppy’s life, a time when the pup is exceptionally open to new experiences. After the twelve week mark, however, the pup gradually becomes more cautious in strange environments. While all the puppies here seem to have had plenty of socialization with other dogs and general country life, I wonder how much they’ve had with humans. One week isn’t a lot of time to cram in four weeks’ worth of activities.
“Have they been handled much?” “Oh, yes.” She points to her son. “Cory, here, is out here all the time with them, aren’t you Cory?” Cory gives a sullen nod that doesn’t reassure me.
Nancy hands me a female puppy. “She’d make a great dog for you,” she says. I’d hoped to get a female puppy and this one even licks my hand, the friendliest of the lot. But she has straight hair and I can see she’ll end up with the wacky Labrador coat rather than the non-shedding poodle one. And since “doesn’t shed, doesn’t stink” is what I’d promised Tom, I want the most poodle-like of the bunch. Plus, this pup is big, a good third larger than the other puppies. We’d hoped for a smaller dog than Tiyo, who weighs 80 pounds and takes up the entire back seat of the car.
I put the pup down, exchanging her for the one with the curliest coat in the bunch, a male. He lies dead-still in my arms, showing no sign of affection or even recognition. The wind bites through my jeans and I shiver, eager to get out of the cold. I stroke his head, but he doesn’t respond.
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll think about it. Could we come back tomorrow if we decide to take him?” I try to hand him back to Nancy. Her arms remain folded.
“Oh, you’d better take him now. I can’t tell these pups apart. I couldn’t be sure you’d get the same one if you came back. And I don’t know how long we’ll have them.”
“We really hadn’t planned on bringing one home now—”
Nancy interrupts me. “He’ll be fine. I’ll give you some dog food if you need it.” She turns and practically pushes us toward the car. I begin to wonder if I’d said “We’re starting up a small dog-fighting ring and I need a few pups,” if she’d say “How many do you need?”
I’m sure she wouldn’t. Her dogs are all well fed, have large pens and a larger exercise area, and she obviously cares for them. She seems more overwhelmed than anything else.
Like the time I thought I can handle a quarter-acre garden even though I didn’t have a tiller or any tools other than a hoe and a shovel. We had moved from New Mexico to Indiana the summer before, and having lived all my life in deserts, I had no idea how things could grow in a hot, humid climate. Before that summer, I’d never realized what it is to lose your garden to weeds: lose in the sense of truly not being able to find the plants. There is that moment of despair when you realize no amount of work can redeem the situation, that all your dreams have strangled in complications thick as growing vines.
Nancy nudges us towards our car. From the dog pens in the big barn above the house comes a riot of barking and howling. Is it my imagination or do I see on her face what I felt when I looked at my garden that summer?
You don’t buy a horse for its color. You don’t get a dog for its coat. I mean, that’s just stupid, right? Obviously, a woman who claims not to be able to tell the puppies apart, and can’t reliably tell us which dogs are the mothers is not running the type of reliable breeding program that will guarantee healthy pups. Read any book on dogs and it will tell you. These pups could all be great candidates for hip dysplasia, skin allergies, or genetic diseases such as degenerative myelopathy. But somehow, even as I’m thinking this, I’m opening the car door and climbing inside, the pup still in my arms.
“I don’t have any idea what to name him,” I say, as my husband, looking a little stunned himself, starts the car. Only later will I realize that this is truly the least of my problems.
Chapter 4: Putting It All on Black
The night we bring him home, he huddles against us like a scared rabbit. We take him to a fenced area in the back yard and put him down. He hops a few steps, still rabbit-like, then hugs the ground. No interest in exploring. No interest in us. I begin to worry that we have a pup too fearful to grow into a confident dog. I will later see later how wildly wrong I am about this.
We outfit one of the cat carriers with blankets and give that to him as his crate. He likes his crate from the start, goes right in and curls up at the back. At least he likes it while we’re in the room. At bedtime, we discover he cries when left alone, but fortunately only for a couple of minutes. Both Tom and I are too light of sleepers to have a dog in our bedroom and we don’t want him so dependent he can’t handle being alone. That will turn out to be another groundless fear, but we don’t know it at the time.
When he begins to cry at 2 am, my first thought, as I prepare to take him outside, is, “I’m too old for this.” It’s a thought that repeats itself many times over the next few weeks, especially when I have to walk him at 5 am, in 18 degree weather with a howling wind that sends the wind chill temps into single digits. On the plus side, he hasn’t soiled his crate.
The next morning he still doesn’t seem to like us much. Have we brought home the only unfriendly puppy in the universe?
We introduce him to Tiyo and our two outdoor cats. I write, “Tiyo likes him in a nervous sort of way. The cats are wary and give us looks that could be interpreted as “Now why the heck did you bring HIM home?”
Later I add that “Tiyo, bless his soul, was cute and good natured with the pup.” This will turn out to be another spectacularly erroneous assessment. I email Nancy about Shadow’s lack of affection. She reassures us that it is a labradoodle trait to be reserved, to stand back and observe a situation before committing to an action. (We later learn this is a poodle trait.) And, maybe she’s right because by the end of that day, all his reticence vanishes. Suddenly, he likes us! He really, really likes us. He follows us around like, well, like a dog. He cries if we leave the room even for a minute when he’s in his crate. All is right with the world.
Still, I try to maintain my own reticence. “He is cute and quite smart but we’re not naming until he passes his physical at the vet’s tomorrow,” I write on a listserv.
I’m fully aware (even if I don’t seem to act on that knowledge) of the possibility that he’s at risk for a host of genetic problems such as hip dysplasia or skin allergies.
I have a particular fear of the latter, having watched two friends who had dogs basically incapacitated by severe allergies. The first had to have her much-loved German shepherd put down when he was only three. His allergies put him in constant agony, despite expensive meds to try to control the problem, and he became aggressive.
Another friend spent years nursing her Akita through doses of prednisone and antibiotics for his skin allergies, sometimes getting up in the middle of the night to give him his meds. Both of these dogs were registered and from reputable breeders. (These serve as reminders that even with good breeders, there’s no ironclad guarantee that a pup will be healthy.)
It’s not a stretch to think that Nancy, whose control over her breeding program seems sketchy to non-existent might have diseased dogs. I know I’m playing the lottery, gene-wise. In fact, I’d asked Nancy when I first called her, before we went over to see the puppies, if she did genetic testing. “All our dogs are healthy,” she replied. “Go ask Liz. She’s treated them all and knows their medical history. Tell her she has my permission to talk to you about them.”
Liz (a pseudonym) is the country vet that everyone in our area uses. Her office is an old two-story farm house remodeled to have a waiting room in the front. It has a rich ambience with its creaking wood floors, wall paper, and old fashioned windows. A not-so-pleasant pungent odor also contributes to the ambience. (“It reeks,” Tom says, crinkling his nose the first time we walked in.) Several cats and a French bulldog roam freely through the house. It was here, on a bulletin board, that I first saw the photo of the wacky-haired labradoodle from Nancy’s kennel that started this whole quest.
I had dropped by Liz’s office hoping to talk to her the day before our appointment with Nancy. No luck. Liz was out dosing some cattle for a local farmer. But Linda, her receptionist, trying to be helpful, thumbed through the files of Nancy’s breeding dogs and found no evidence of hip dysplasia, skin allergies, or any other serious problem.
I’d hoped to whisk him to the vet’s the morning after we brought him home, but the only opening was for the following day. We arrive bright and early, prepared to hear the same glowing report about his bloodlines as we’d had from the receptionist.
But Liz insists that, permission or not, professional ethics and state law prohibit her from telling us anything about other people’s pets.
“Really?” I say, not able to hide my dismay. “Because I came in the other day and Linda said there wasn’t anything bad in the records Otherwise we wouldn’t have brought him home.”
Liz sighs. “Linda shouldn’t have told you anything.” Then, making a decision, she says, “I can’t go into specifics, but there is some hip dysplasia in his lines, and some skin allergies.”
Great. Now you tell me.
Liz informs us that the pup looks fine except he’s a little underweight, has fleas and worms, and is older than Nancy told us. Liz guesses he is around thirteen weeks old. “So, do you want to go ahead with his shots?” She asks us.
Can we really return him? If we could have had the information about possible genetic issues before he started to like us—really, really like us—maybe we could have managed it. We definitely didn’t want a shut-down, fearful dog. But now that he’s over that, he seems like a normal, exuberant, and extremely smart pup.
He crouches on the stainless steel table, radiating beams of puppy cuteness that penetrate our hearts.
Tom and I exchange a glance, and then he shrugs. “Let’s do it.”
“Okay,” I say. And just like that, we’re all in.
Want to meet Shadow’s alter-ego, Doodle? Click here.