Our Labradoodles have Fleece Coats

Some Labradoodles look different. What is an Australian Labradoodle, what type of coat will our puppies have?

Labradoodle and Australian Labradoodle Coats are defined differently all over the breeding world. I prefer to separate the possible coats in three texture categories (flat, fleece, and wool), and three wave levels (straight, wavy, curly). Those in bold are the results we see here at Rainmaker Ranch Australian Labradoodles and breed towards in our selective program. Many wool and fleece coats vary slightly and a fleece coat can have a wool patch while a wool coat can have a fleece patch. Rarely is a wool or fleece coat 100% one or the other but more like 80-90%. For example our Kiwi has a 100% fleece coat while Callie has a few wooly areas.

Labradoodle Coat Types

The three coat texture types are:

• Wool, slightly course but soft like a luxurious, very thick, wool shag
• Fleece, a chenille feel, very soft and silky
• Flat, Wiry or Hair, the feel of a lab coat, each hair has a slight texture

The three coat wave levels are:

• Curly, the strands loop over themselves in a curl about 1 inch in diameter
• Wavy, the strand waves and wiggles back and forth not looping over
• Straight, this can be long to about 5 inches or a short 2 inches in length

Putting it all together from poodle coat to lab coat in appearance is as follows, again our own results are in bold, I have listed the coat and then the name of the breed that can carry that coat, possible rare combinations are not shown:

• Full Breed Poodle Coat: Poodle
• Wool texture: Curly coated Australian Labradoodle and Curly coated Labradoodle
• Fleece texture: Curly coated Australian Labradoodle and Curly coated Labradoodle
• Wool texture: Wavy coated Australian Labradoodle and Wavy coated Labradoodle
• Fleece texture: Wavy coated Australian Labradoodle and Wavy coated Labradoodle
• Wool texture: Straight coated Australian Labradoodle and Straight coated Labradoodle
• Fleece texture: Straight coated Australian Labradoodle and Straight coated Labradoodle
• Flat Wiry Hair texture: Straight coated Labradoodle
• Full Breed Lab Coat: Lab

All of our Australian Labradoodles have a wavy fleece coat resembling a sheep dog with a mop of wonderful waves. Since 2001 we have specialized in Australian Labradoodle versus our previous program selectively breeding Standard Poodles. See our section on shedding and allergies for more specific details on these topics.