Opinion is divided on so-called designer dogs, but one thing's for sure, their owners adore them, writes Michael Kelly.
MENTION THE WORDS Labradoodle, Schnoodle, Puggle, Cockerpoo or Dalmador to pedigree dog breeders and you can be fairly sure it will send them into a frenzy of indignation. Opponents of so-called "designer dogs" say they are over-priced mutts with trendy names - a canine flash in the pan. But their many fans accuse pedigree breeders of snobbery, and argue that many long-established breeds such as Dobermanns and Jack Russells were originally cross-breeds anyway.
It is believed that the first Labradoodle was bred in the 1980s by an Australian guide-dog breeder aiming to combine the low-shed coat of the Poodle with the trainability of the Labrador. Mother-of-three and Labradoodle owner Gail Kilroy is caught in a blur of conflicting emotions about her two-year-old Doodle, Summer. She's clearly besotted and yet, you get the feeling that Summer's arrival (costing £1,000 from a Birmingham breeder) has caused an upheaval in the Kilroy household.
As well as the usual puppy problems (chewed slippers, gnawed-on skirting boards and so on), they also had to deal with the fact that their other dog Molly, an "ancient" Shih Tzu, never really recovered from the shock of Summer's arrival, and has been in a permanent sulk ever since. There was also an occasion when in a fit of excitement Summer knocked the Kilroys' middle daughter down the stairs (thankfully she was unhurt - the daughter that is).
Make no mistake, this is a large, rambunctious dog with a boundless supply of energy.
"She's absolutely great and just a gorgeous dog, but I'm always talking about getting rid of her to make myself feel better. She's a massive, bouncy dog. She has a Lab's frame, so she is quite stocky, but she has the legs of a poodle, which also makes her tall."
The Kilroys live in Monkstown, Co Dublin, so Summer's exercise regime takes the form of regular jaunts (about five hours a week) up Killiney Hill or on the pier in Dún Laoghaire. "Maybe one in four people will stop me and make some sort of a comment about her. On Killiney Hill, I'm the one shouting and roaring her name, but she generally ignores me. You could walk her for 10 hours and she would still be as hyper when you get home."
Kilroy is a no-nonsense dog owner and yet there are unashamed flashes of indulgence in evidence, too. For example, she's happy to feed her dogs table scraps, but Summer also gets an organic dog food from Marks & Spencer. Organic dog food? Really? "Yeah, well she won't eat just dried food, so we give her a mixture of everything. She gets leftovers, too. On Sundays she basically gets a roast dinner with all the trimmings."
So is she well behaved? "Hmm. She's willful and she's very much her own person. She's bold but she's not malicious. My mother persuaded me to get a Dog Whisperer in, but of course we never did any of the things we were told to do, and the instructional DVD is still in its wrapper."