Are backyard breeders behind the dumping of labradoodle dogs in Bellingham-area woods?

The rising demand for specialty dogs like doodles has prompted a boom in backyard breeders. And that is also the reason 21 so-called designer dogs were found abandoned in the woods.

At the end of August, some Whatcom County residents noticed a pack of furry creatures running wild in the woods.

They weren’t bears, or cougars, or even coyotes.

They were labradoodles.

The dogs were in bad shape. It was obvious they had been abandoned. Then, it happened again.

"Over the course of two weeks, we ended up with 21 of these dogs," explained Laura Clark, executive director of the Whatcom County Humane Society.

You’ve seen a doodle before — they’re everywhere. The curly-haired mixes have exploded in popularity in recent years because of their supposedly hypoallergenic coat, and cute, teddy bear-like appearance that plays well on social media.

Clark said it was obvious these dogs came from a breeder.

"Besides just being matted with sticks and dirt, and skin scrapings all over them — filthy — they were also shut down emotionally," she said. "It became really clear very quickly that they had not been around humans a lot. So when we see that type of an animal in a large scale case like this, we think puppy mill or we think backyard breeder."

Washington state has pretty strong puppy mill laws, Clark explained. But those are only for operations of 50 dogs or more. For smaller breeders, the law hasn't caught up.

"They know exactly what they have to do to not get themselves in trouble," Clark said.

The Humane Society has DNA tested the doodles that were dumped, and are currently comparing that DNA to other samples from dogs purchased by local breeders. But actually prosecuting the culprits will be difficult.

There are laws requiring that animals receive basic care, including food, water, shelter, and veterinary visits. But it's difficult to prove that an animal was purposefully neglected, Clark said, which will make it difficult to hold the backyard breeders that dumped the 21 dogs accountable.

And this isn't the only backyard breeder in Whatcom County.

The popularity of designer dog breeds like doodles has exploded in recent years, particularly during the pandemic. And that has led to a huge increase in backyard breeding and overbreeding.

"I want to make it very clear, these are not responsible breeders," Clark said. A responsible, ethical breeder will invite any potential buyer into their home or breeding kennel. They'll introduce you to the mothering dog, and provide veterinary records and health certificates.

They're not going to meet you in a parking lot with a dog, as many backyard breeders do.

That overbreeding also means that animal shelters like the Whatcom County Humane Society are seeing a huge increase in abandonments. It's one of the reasons animal shelters are overcrowded right now.

Another is pandemic puppies — pets adopted during the Covid-19 lockdown.

"Everybody wants a dog you can go to the brewery with or the coffee house with or the dog park with," Clark said. But when people got dogs during the pandemic, the breweries weren't open, neither were the coffee houses or dog parks.

"And so now we're left with a sort of a population of dogs that don't have real great social skills," she said. "And now that life has gone back to normal, dogs are acting a little bit different, just like kids are going back to school."

Clark said people don't want to put in the time and work to train a dog that doesn't know how to act in public. And so, those animals are often abandoned.

"And then you have the economic issues with housing," Clark added. "It is really hard to afford housing in Washington state and especially with pet deposits and security deposits and all that people can no longer afford to pay."

Clark called it a perfect storm, and the result is that the Whatcom County Humane Society has been over capacity for 16 straight months.

The 21 doodles rescued this summer have now all be adopted, or moved to other rescue groups. They've reached a happy ending. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

"As soon as people realized there was a demand for dog like that, every puppy mill breeder, unethical breeder, greedy entrepreneur breeder type, just started mushing these dogs together," said Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles, and author of the book, "Designer Dogs: An Exposé: Inside the Criminal Underworld of Crossbreeding."

Bernstein said the labradoodle — a labrador first mixed with a poodle for the purposes of creating a guide dog back in the 1980s — is what started the trend of “designer dogs.” More and more purebred mixes were developed, feeding what Bernstein called a consumerist mindset that a dog should be a perfect accessory.

For doodles, part of the allure is that they’re advertised as hypo-allergenic, which Bernstein said isn’t actually possible.

But this goes beyond whether a dog’s coat makes your eyes water.

The demand for these extremely Instagram-able breeds — like teacup poodles, or miniature Australian shepherds — can lead to genetic issues.

Bernstein said you can look to that original labradoodle as an example.

"Heart problems, knee problems, you can have mental problems, OCD, problems," Bernstein said. "You get this one big dog that may look adorable, but has tons of medical problems, and people aren't going to pay four, five, six, ten thousand dollars for them."

Bernstein said this is an issue of little to no regulation in the U.S. No one is watching to make sure that these breeding operations are safe and ethical. But it’s also become a global issue. Even if the U.S. did start to regulate breeding standards, dogs could still be shipped in from other countries that don’t have the same laws.

Ultimately, according to Bernstein, it’s up to consumers to stop the demand for these designer pooches.

"Let's not create the demand and then the suppliers will go off and get greedy over something else," she said.