About Poodles, Doodles, and Responsible Breeding

Forest Glen Kennel is located just outside Oklahoma City on 5+ beautiful and wooded acres.  We raise Labradoodles, Bernedoodles, and Poodles because we want to provide people that have allergies an option for a furry family member that doesn’t shed at all (or very little).

Our family has always loved dogs, but some of us have become allergic to them as we became adults.  For more than 25 years, our family has owned Standard Poodles. Standard Poodles are incredibly intelligent and loving, but they do have attitudes and can be stubborn.

Eight years ago, we added our first Labradoodle to our family.  Labradoodles add the sweet, willing-to-please personality of the Labrador.  Our boys dressed our Labradoodle, Shasta, as a civil war era soldier, a beach bum, etc.  He was a very playful companion. Sadly, Shasta only lived a handful of years because he developed complications due to Addison’s Disease, which was a very painful loss for our family.

This is why we are so passionate about providing families with furry family members that are as healthy as possible.  Thankfully, we are now able to run a genetic panel on each of our dogs before we breed them.  It doesn’t catch everything, but it does help us to prevent breeding dogs with genetic defects.

Responsible Breeding is Critical

Doodle breeders need to be very careful when breeding Poodles to other breeds because they could produce puppies with an increased chance of getting a disease that is predominant to one or both of the breeds.

If you suffer from allergies, it will be helpful to you to know that Poodle dander is quite different from that of other breeds. Choosing a Poodle may provide you with an alternative to avoiding dogs altogether.

If dog saliva provides an allergic response, you might want to wait before adding a Poodle or Doodle to your family.  Poodles were safe for me if routinely groomed, but if I was around a dog with a double coat, I’d have an asthma attack.

Please note that a doodle is a cross between a Poodle and another breed which are commonly referred to as “F1”.  An F1 doodle could have a coat that takes after the Poodle (which could be allergy-friendly), but it might take after the other breed (which could cause allergic reactions).  A breeder can help determine which breed the puppy coat more closely resembles, but there are no guarantees that a doodle will be safe for an allergy sufferer.

Some of our litters will be F1B, which means they should be close to 75% Poodle and 25% the other breed.  An F1B puppy should cause even less of a reaction from an allergy sufferer and doesn’t shed its coat.  An F2 litter consists of puppies from an F1 dam and an F1 sire.  F2 litters are known for their coat consistency.

If you don’t have allergies, don’t care about shedding, and love a mystery, please consider rescuing a dog from a shelter.  They provide just as much love and willingness to please as a carefully bred dog.