DOMINIC LAWSON: I got a Bernedoodle before they became the must-have dog. It's ... trends now
Poodle crosses have been all the rage for some years. But suddenly, or so a number of recent articles have claimed, the most sought-after of all is something called a Bernedoodle — a cross between a poodle and a Bernese mountain dog.
Which makes the Lawson household feel like (unintended) fashion leaders. Because on November 1, 2022, we acquired a Bernedoodle. Our lives have not been the same since.
When we went to the home where Luna was born eight weeks earlier we were able to get a good look at her parents. The mother, a Bernese mountain dog, was wary and territorial.
The father, a standard poodle, was much, much bigger than I had expected, and full of affectionate energy. Luna was, most unusually, the only puppy in the litter. I felt rather sorry for her parents as we drove her back to our home in Sussex.
From that day, she dominated our household, initially with a trail of destruction. One of her first victims was my laptop: she found the keypad enormous fun to chew and demolish.
The Lawsons' Bernedoodle Luna, who has been a member of their family since 2022
Long ago we had a succession of Leonbergers, mainly because we have a couple of ponds and we felt our then- young daughter Domenica, who has Down's syndrome, would be safer if we had dogs that were naturally inclined to be protective and easily trained to drag people out of water (the breed has webbed paws).
But the trouble is that, like so many big pure-breeds, our Leonbergers didn't live long: Domenica was devastated when they died relatively young.
In contrast, first-generation hybrids are much less prone to genetic conditions. Poodles had originally been bred in Germany as water-retrievers ('pudel', means splash, and they were called pudelhund). So that, combined with our desire for 'hybrid vitality' was what made us choose a Bernedoodle.
But Luna's vitality is off the charts. Even with three long daily walks, she never seems to tire of wanting to play games, almost the whole day long.
Apparently this is a function of very high intelligence, which she manifests constantly. She will tilt her head to one side if you talk to her, giving the appearance of trying especially hard to understand what is being said. She does this even while I am playing chess, as if trying to decipher the moves.
(This gives me the excuse to tell the old joke about the man who visited a friend and found him playing chess with his dog. 'That's amazing,' he said. 'Not really,' said his friend, 'I've won two of the last three games.')
One result of this, after we got over the initial mayhem, is that she is highly trainable: she always comes when called, even when in the middle of chasing something.
The woman whose dog training
