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Biscuit sits at the entrance of her new home in Stafford County.
People are paying hundreds of dollars for popular puppies like this local labradoodle.
This two-month old Labradoodle is a crossbred between a lab and a poodle. They are a new breed of 'designer dogs'.
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Puggles and doodles and cockapoos, oh my.
Forget the trusty German shepherd and faithful terrier. These days more and more dog owners are looking for something different. They're finding it in designer dogs--hybrids created by mating dogs of different breeds.
"Everybody wants the new puggle," said Bonnie Hickey, owner of Pets Plus in Stafford County. "They were featured on one of the TV morning talk shows right before Christmas, and it created a buzz."
Mary de Merle and Nathaniel Eskin of Spotsylvania County had never heard of a puggle, a cross between a pug and a beagle. The Lee's Hill residents were looking for a purebred beagle when they walked into Pets Plus.
Then they saw Goldie, and fell in love.
"She has these big, big soft brown eyes," de Merle said, "and her personality is unbelievable."
Puggles are definitely the trendy designer dogs these days, according to Garry Garner of the American Canine Hybrid Club. The club is connected with America's Pet Registry Inc., an organization that registers hybrid puppies born of purebred parents, as well as purebred puppies.
"Labradoodles are No. 1 overall," Garner said. "They're requested more than any other breed. But in the last couple of years, puggles have been at the top of the list."
Labradoodles are a cross between a a Labrador retriever and a poodle. They were developed in Australia 15 to 20 years ago to provide allergy-free guide dogs.
Poodles are involved in many of the crosses because they don't shed and are not apt to cause allergic reactions in those sensitive to dog hair.
This was the case for Ann Lyons of Lee's Hill in Spotsylvania County. Her daughter, Sarah, is allergic to dogs, so they had never had one. Then Lyons' sister, Linda Seligmann, who has golden retrievers, told them about the golden retriever-poodle cross called a goldendoodle.
"They're the cutest things you have ever seen in your life," Lyons said.
And, she said, "They're incredibly social dogs. They want to play all the time."
Lyons, who had a poodle as a child, says she can see "jumpy, bouncy poodleness" in their Sandy, as well as the sociability of the golden retriever.
"Personality-wise I could not ask for more than the one we have now," Lyons said. "I can't think of a dog more fun with kids."
Hickey said that Labradoodles are also popular with Pets Plus customers.
Dean and Monika Bellamy of Park Ridge in Stafford County recently bought a Labradoodle puppy there.
"We were looking for an intelligent dog that would be good with kids, very loving," Dean Bellamy said.
His children, 4-year-old Zachary and 5-year-old Ashley, had fallen in love with a yellow Lab that they had read to at Porter Library's Paws for R.E.A.D.ing program, so the Bellamys were looking for a similar dog.
"The Labradoodle is a great combination," Dean Bellamy said.
Cockapoos, a combination of cocker spaniel and poodle, are another popular hybrid. They are probably the most common cross over the years, according to the ACHC's Garner, but Khristy Benson of Stratford Place in Stafford County wasn't familiar with them before she met Biscuit.
"The kids had wanted a dog for a long time," Benson said as she petted the fluffy bundle of white and beige curls.
The little cockapoo was a Christmas surprise for the four Benson offspring, who range in age from 7-year-old Kyle to 1-year-old Katie.
The dog had belonged to a friend's family, but there had been allergy problems, even with a low-shed dog like Biscuit.
"I heard she needed a home, so I researched the breed," Benson said.
She liked the fact that cockapoos are small dogs, that they don't shed a lot and are good with children.
"She seemed to fit in with my family," Benson said.
"She's very low maintenance and happy to be around people. All the kids love her."
"They love children," said Dee Knapczyk, who bred cockapoos for three years before she had to give it up for health reasons.
Her daughter, Kathy Knapczyk, got her started with the gift of a cockapoo named Lady. Lady had 23 puppies in three litters before being spayed.
"She loved being a mother," Knapczyk said.
Although Kathy Knapczyk can get $400 and $500 for the cockapoo puppies she breeds in Delaware, her mother said she usually charged $300.
"The main thing is to get a good home," Dee Knapczyk said. "I'd rather keep the price down and find a good home."
The downside of designer dogs is that one can never be sure what one is getting.
"[Hybrid breeders] say they're the best of both breeds. There's no way to guarantee that," said Lisa Peterson, a spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club. "It could be the worst of both breeds."
"It's unrealistic to expect to get only the good traits from each dog," agreed Hickey, the pet store owner.
The AKC maintains standards that define each of 153 recognized breeds and registers puppies bred to those standards.
Designer dogs are not separate breeds, because there is no standard that breeders are trying to meet.
"They lack predictability," Peterson said.
So what's the difference between a designer dog and a plain old mutt?
"A mutt has no ancestry," Garner said.
He and his wife started breeding hybrids in 1969. They began furnishing pedigrees for their dogs so customers would know what they were getting.
Popular as they are, designer dogs have not overtaken the purebreds, Garner said.
The American Pet Registry Inc. registers 7,000 to 8,000 litters of purebreds a month, he said, compared to around 500 litters of hybrids with month.
But the quest for something different, something exclusive, is growing. Garner said the APRI includes slightly more than 200 recognized crosses, including such exotics as Siberian husky/timber wolf and basset/shar pei.
"It's expanded beyond what I ever thought it would," Garner said.
To reach LUCIA ANDERSON:
Email: landerson@freelancestar.com
