Posted: 8/14/2018
So you are looking for a puppy, and ... the choices are overwhelming! Where do you start, and how do you decide? The first question is most often, which breed should we select?
A puppy grows into an adult dog that is part of the family for years to come. How do you find the best fit for your family?
What size do you want?
What type of coat?
How energetic?
How easily trained?
Are you okay with shedding?
What color?
What markings?
What gender?
What else?
Just how do you select your breed? So many questions and so much information - just how do you choose?
Have you ever considered a Mini Goldendoodle? Below are the 5 reasons you may want to consider a mini golden doodle as your next puppy. We also list a few bonus considerations to consider in your decision.
Miniature goldendoodles (most often shortened to mini goldendoodles) are, as you are probably aware, a hybrid cross between the golden retriever and miniature poodle parent breeds.
Golden retrievers are well known for being very family friendly and mild mannered overall. Poodles are well recognized as one of the most intelligent breeds and are also family friendly. The combination of these breeds has produced a very adaptable and well mannered breed that works well with almost any family and setting.
Here are a few general temperament characteristics of the breed:
Very social
Get along well with other pets
Playful
Mild to moderate activity level
Adaptable to most environments
Therapy personalities
Very family friendly
Love attention
Easily trainable
Goldendoodles, as you can see, are well rounded socially. They adjust to almost any situation with proper training. Other pets, children of all ages, adults of any life stage, families with very busy schedules, retirees with lots of free time, apartment buildings in a city, home on a farm - these are the range of environments we have placed mini goldendoodle puppies where they thrive equally well if they are given attention as part of the family.
Above where we talked about the general disposition of the mini goldendoodle breed, all the temperament characteristics point to the ease of training. A puppy always has energy and training is a process, no matter the breed, but each breed is different and some much more challenging than others. Mini goldendoodles are very eager to please along with their social disposition - this makes for training success with little experience needed.
We recommend Jan Fennell as an excellent author and her book, The Dog Listener, as one of the best resources on training for long term behavior. Jan's methods are a gentle but firm approach looking through the lens of a wolf pack dominance order and every day experiences to back her theories.
As with any breed, if proper and consistent training is not given, a dog will not be well behaved. That being said, goldendoodles are very quick to catch on.
Crate training is probably the most widely used method for potty training. Mini goldendoodles adapt easily to this method and are some of the quickest to be fully trained.
The mini goldendoodle temperament along with the small/medium size make an excellent fit for therapy training. Special needs training can include training for human companions with:
Alzheimer's
Anxiety
Autism
Dementia
Health conditions
Learning disabilities
Physical disabilities
PTSD
Surgery recovery
In addition to the list above, golden doodles also have the general disposition for highly specialized training for diabetes, epilepsy, the blind, and others.
If shedding or allergies are a concern, you very likely came across the miniature goldendoodle breed in your search for a low shedding puppy. If either is your concern you are on the right track, but please be cautious. Mini goldendoodles can range in amount of shedding that is affected by the type and specific genetics of the parents.
Golden retrievers have heavily shedding coats, where poodles are considered a non-shedding breed. Obviously, the combination cannot produce purely non-shedding puppies every time with the first generation cross. We explain the general coat characteristics and shedding potential based on type on our mini goldendoodle page.
We have also found that poodle coat qualities can range drastically, which greatly influences the potential for shedding. We have many years of experience and can usually tell how much potential for shedding a pairing will give based on the coat of the parents. We aim to lessen shedding potential by selection of the parent dogs we select.
Dog allergies are associated with shedding. Shedding and pet dander are usually connected, which are the drivers of pet allergies. Most low shedding goldendoodles are hypoallergenic. Hypo means low - in this case low potential to cause allergies, but low does not mean no potential. Some people are highly allergic to dogs, where they will still react to most poodles. Poodles are considered one of the best breeds in terms of hypoallergenic qualities. While this is not common, if you have this severe of allergies, we cannot recommend a goldendoodle for you.
You may have come across someone who has a goldendoodle that you love, but you just can't understand why or how you could have a dog the size of a miniature pony in your home. Many breeders have their own way of defining, but we consider mini goldendoodles to have miniature poodles, not standard or toy size, as the poodle parent breed. Some prefer the standard goldendoodle, which we don't raise.
Our mini goldendoodle puppies range from 10-50 lbs, depending on the type. This range works well for most family situations and are not so small that they have the problems related to many toy breeds. They are hearty enough to keep up with an active lifestyle, but not so big that they dominate the entire house in a few bounds.
We have found that size has been one of the most important characteristics in selecting a puppy for most families.
It goes without saying - health is the most important overall factor when choosing a puppy. You are in luck with the mini goldendoodle breed. Not every health concern and not every bad breeder can be eliminated, but the mini goldendoodle breed in general is very healthy. A breeder that places emphasis on experience with the genetics they are comfortable with will give the best result. Too many genetic tests or tests that incorrectly claim to be genetic provide a false sense of security when the best way to have healthy puppies is to know the background of puppies from many generations. That is how we raise puppies here at Mini Golden Puppies.
You may have a specific color you are looking for in a puppy. Goldendoodles can come in almost any color a dog comes, but the most common are the cream/red shade spectrum. We don't have a recommendation for color, since color does not affect health, disposition, size, or coat type of a goldendoodle, which we feel are the most important.
We have done an in depth study of dog color genetics and know the popular deep red color is very hard to keep as an adult with the golden retriever and poodle parent breeds. We have introduced the Irish setter into the mini goldendoodle cross to try and maintain a darker red coloring on some of our puppies.
Parti colored, white spots, and nose/paw coloring can be a preference for some families. Your breeder should have an understanding of these potentials with each litter.
Some families have a strong preference for gender. We have seen no difference in temperament or trainability with the mini goldendoodle breed due to gender. We recommend spaying/neutering around 6 months old, which is young enough to keep the hormone behavior differences from appearing. Our strong recommendation is: don't pass up a puppy that meets all your other criteria just because of gender.
There you have our recommendations on why you will want to consider a mini goldendoodle as your next puppy. Feel free to look around our site for more information or contact us to see what our current or expected puppy availability is.