Most oodle owners do not realise the Labradoodle is the original. In 1989, Wally Conron of the Royal Guide Dogs Association of Australia in Victoria crossed a Standard Poodle with a Labrador Retriever. He was trying to create a guide dog for a woman in Hawaii whose husband was allergic to dog dander. The first puppy, Sultan, was a success. He had the Labrador's calm guide dog temperament and the Poodle's low-shedding coat. Every doodle breed that followed, the Cavoodle, the Groodle, the Spoodle, the Moodle, the Bordoodle, all trace back to that first Australian breeding programme. Today the Labradoodle has spread across the world, but the breed standard, the size categories, and the Australian Labradoodle multi-generational lines all started here.

No other oodle has this kind of size variation. A miniature Labradoodle and a standard Labradoodle can be a 4x weight difference. This affects everything: how long the groom takes, how much it costs, how much coat there is to maintain at home, and how fast mats form when you skip a brushing session. Knowing your Labradoodle's size category is the first step in setting realistic grooming expectations.

Labradoodles have three coat types and the third one catches owners off guard. The hair coat sheds. It is the closest to a Labrador coat and many owners find out they have one only after months of vacuuming. Wool coats are tight and curly like a Poodle, fleece coats are soft and wavy and are what most people picture when they think Labradoodle, but hair coats are real and need to be groomed differently.

Labradoodles inherit serious water love from both parents. Labradors were bred to retrieve waterfowl in cold lakes, and Standard Poodles were originally water dogs hunting birds in marshes. Most Labradoodles have webbed feet. Many Adelaide Labradoodles are at the beach, the river or the dam every chance they get. This sounds adorable until you understand what it does to the coat. Salt water dries the natural oils, sand grits into the fleece, and chlorine can fade colour. More important, water trapped in the ear canal sets up infections fast in a dog with floppy ears.

Standard Labradoodle owners are often unprepared for how much time daily brushing takes. A standard wool coat Labradoodle can take 30 to 45 minutes of proper line brushing. A miniature wool coat takes 10 to 15 minutes. The technique is the same, the time investment is not. Be realistic about what you can commit to before choosing a haircut style, because the cut you pick locks in your home routine.

Labradoodle cuts vary more than any other oodle because the breed itself varies more. The right cut depends on coat type, size, lifestyle, and how realistic you are about home brushing time. A common mistake is owners asking for a long teddy bear on a wool coat Labradoodle they cannot brush daily. The cut looks beautiful for two weeks then mats catastrophically.

Labradoodle mats almost always start in five places: behind the ears, in the ear feathering, in the armpits where the harness sits, on the chest where the dog sleeps on it, and on the legs from constant movement. Active Labradoodles who swim or roll get mats faster because the coat dries flat in tangles after every adventure. By the time a mat is visible from outside, it has usually grown to the skin. Trying to brush a tight mat out of a fully grown Labradoodle takes longer and stresses the dog more than just clipping it short and starting over.