Q. Is it true that the F1 is the healthiest and most desirable goldendoodle?

A. The thought that F1’s have “hybrid vigor” and are thereby the healthiest has, unfortunately, been proven erroneous as  goldendoodles – generally age 6 – 8 – have succumbed to the cancer that is prevalent in the golden retriever (hemangiosaracoma).

Q. Since an F1 is 50% golden retriever and 50% poodle, is the F1b 75% poodle and 25% golden retriever?  And what percentage does that make a multigen?

A. An F1 may have 100% poodle and 100% golden retriever parents, and statistically it is 50% of each, but things like coat and shedding are made up of more then one gene. Because of this, each pup can look very different, just as you may look very different from your siblings. Within one litter, some puppies may have a straighter coat and some will have waiver coats.

The same happens in an F1b litter:  some puppies may have an F1-type coat, some will have wavy coats, and some will have curly coats.  While you may see explanations that an F1b is 75% poodle and 25% golden retriever, this is not statistically nor scientifically accurate. An F1b is 100% goldendoodle and receives traits from both parents as well as grandparents, and further back in the line.

A true multigen is the result of breeding goldendoodles to goldendoodles – and one of the goldendoodles may be an F1, an F1b or a multigen bred to an F1b or another multigen.  Both parents bring traits from their backgrounds and the resulting litter is 100% goldendoodle and, as with the F1’s and F1b’s, one litter can produce several different coat types:  flat, straight, wavy, and curly. Our doodle families report little to no shedding with our multigens, whether they have a flat coat, straight coat, wavy coat, or curly coat.

Q. What is best for allergy suffers, least shedding?  F1? F1b? Multigen?

A. See our blog post:  Best goldendoodle for allergy sufferers/least shedding coats

Q.Why do you use goat’s milk for your puppies?

A.We use goat’s milk for two events — if a puppy needs supplemental feeding due to lack of weight gain, etc, we use goat’s milk as it’s the closest to the mother’s milk. If you buy puppy supplement at the petstores, it is primarily goat’s milk in the ingredients. We add small amounts of Nutrical to offer high-caloric nutritional supplemental with the goat’s milk. We also use goat’s milk to start the weaning process and to get the puppies prepared for eating from bowls. Since the goat’s milk is most like mom’s, they love it and start transitioning to drinking water and eating. Baby rice cereal is added to the milk a few days later to start making it less liquidy, and each day a little more is added to make them get used to more solid consumption. The following week, kibble is added and then finally, by week 4-5, they are on dry kibble.