Back around 1987 I was looking for a companion dog for my Shitzu-poo, Brutus, and saw an ad in the classifieds for "free to good home, neighbors golden retriever got to my champion poodle...." I got one of the female pups, a blonde with black highlights, and soon realized I had the best dog I had ever owned. (I've had dogs all my life).
Sugar, as I named her, was the sweetest dog I had ever been around. Whenever I walked her people always wanted to know what kind of dog she was. I called her a "Great American Groodle", but one day someone asked me if she was a labradoodle, and I said "no, she's a Goldendoodle", and I believe I coined the name at that time. (1989)
Sugar lived to be 16 years old, and was a very healthy, happy dog for the whole time. She was my constant companion, ridinng proudly in the from passenger seat of my van. Sshe left me suddenly one day, she seemed sonewhat upset as I went to work one morning, so I returned later to take her to the vet, only to find her unconciousa, and never to revive.
After waiting for Brutus to pass, (he lived to be 19) we decided we wanted a goldendoodle for our next dog, so I contacted the local vets to see if any more "accidents" like the one that created Sugar had happened. That was when I found out that people were actually breeding Goldendoodles and charging lots of money for them. Not to be deterred, we found a local breeder and arranged to get a pup. Before our litter was due, however, the breeder called me and said that a friend of hers had a Goldendoodle that had had a litter sired by a poodle, and wondered if we would be interested in them. This turned out to be a fortunate connection, as she only wanted 1/3 of the price that our breeder wanted, so we ended up getting two, a black male and a blonde female. We named them Pebbles and Bambam. For 1 1/2 years all was well, but one day Pebbles, who had a thing about cars, managed to get away and run into the highway, where she was struck and killed.
I felt I should let the lady we got them from know about it, and she told me that she still had some pups from the second litter, so I drove back to North Carolina and picked up a blonde male, Rocky, to keep Bambam company.
Bambam is now 5, and Rocky is 3, and they go almost everywhere I go, except to work. In mmy mind, Goldendoodles are by far the best dogs in the world.
