A better choice

​The MDBA is not the breed club for the Australian Cobberdog - it’s a dog registry for all breeds of dogs located in Australia.  The CEO notified me that it will terminate any member who includes any breed of dog not registered with the MDBA on their website, as well as termination if i use the same kennel name for that other breed on a different website.    We thought it over, and decided we want only one website, one kennel name, and one program consistent with our beliefs on what makes a great therapy / emotional support dog.


We are breeders of therapy dogs first and foremost, and have been since before we joined the MDBA.  We joined with a small band of carefully selected Australian Labradoodles for their intuition, calm nature, and easy trainability.  Many Australian Labradoodle breeders from around the world registered their dogs with the MDBA back then and were warmly welcomed - we just wanted to preserve those traits and give the breed a legitimate name, since it not a “doodle” anymore and hasn’t been for 20 years. 


Within 18 months of joining, the MDBA announced, retroactively, that we could no longer use them (we should have had a date 1-2 years out so we could plan for such a change).  Then we were told we couldn’t even have them on our website anymore.  My Australian Labradoodles were then moved to a separate website under a different kennel name per their new rules.  Some of my clients thought that was my idea and jumped to the wrong conclusions.


  We believe breeders of a developing breed should know what breeds have been added to the foundation bloodlines and what improvements those additions bring to the breed as well as what diseases.  We believe in transparency.  I was embarrassed to answer my clients that i didn’t know what breeds went into this breed i was faithfully developing. They wouldn’t tell us.  It is unfair to expect us to import a breeding dog ( at tens of thousands of dollars each) from overseas when we don’t have a clue what we’re bringing in to our programs.  Find out the hard way is absurd when it’s my clients who would be finding out the hard way,  and reporting back to me angrily.  We simply could not continue that way.  For these reasons, we are no longer affiliated with the MDBA, and have joined the ACC, who’s breeding values are consistent with my own.  We have gone back to using only foundational dogs from the same founders, but with long histories of selective breeding out of disease, and  no unknown breed infusions.  We think it’s the better choice for our clients.