Puppy Forum and Dog Forums banner

Poodles

1948 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  03firefly
I have always heard that Poodles (and other curly-haired breeds) are hypoallergenic dogs that don't (hardly) shed.
However, recently, I've been hearing a lot of backlash to that. People saying "There's no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog" "Shedding doesn't matter because it is the saliva that people are allergic to" "All dogs shed"

My thing is, I know people allergic to dogs that are perfectly fine around poodles (I don't know about other curly-haired breeds). My cousin is very allergic to dogs, but had no problem with my family's poodle when she was younger (and no, it's not an allergy that could have come later, because she was no ok with our neighbor's German Shepherd).
I also have a friend that is very allergic to dogs. Her skin gets itchy and her eyes watery from both a dog licking her and even from just petting them. However, she lives in a house with anywhere from 3-6 standard poodles; sometimes more if they have puppies (they breed). She has absolutely no problem with them. To be fair, her poodles do not lick as much as other dogs, but their male likes to put your hand in his mouth, and she's never complained about that bothering her.
Also, I have been to her house on multiple occasions and rarely do I see dog hair. I've been to houses with only one dog that had more hair on the floor than what is produced from the poodles, and I can honestly say that my friend with the poodles does not clean her house more than twice a week.

So, I'm not trying to start an argument, but I'm just curious... where is this backlash against calling poodles hypoallergenic coming from? As I said, I grew up with this knowledge, and while those who oppose may have been around, I've only really been hearing opposition recently. Is there truth to this and my friend just happens to be used to poodle hair/saliva but not the hair/saliva of other breeds; considering she grew up with poodles? I understand that it's impossible for a dog to not shed at all, but I will still say poodles don't shed because it is so minimal that you hardly notice.
See less See more
1 - 4 of 9 Posts
That's really interesting. I had never heard of it the other way where a person is allergic to a poodle but not another breed.
I think I knew hypoallergenic didn't mean non-allergenic, but have never had it explained to me so I wasn't entirely sure.

It's interesting too, because my friend who owns the poodles doesn't have a lot of trouble with my wire-haired dachshund, but does have trouble with my Carin and my Westie mix.
You know what, I completely forgot about the whole doodle craze. I agree, I think it is ridiculous... not to mention some of those mixes are not the... cutest dogs ever... and I rarely say that about dogs. My family was looking for dogs and we tracked down the breeder of my first dog and found out that she had switched to breeding labradoodles. This was our first encounter with these dogs (we had heard of them, but this was a while ago when the craze was only just starting), so when she told us that they wont shed, my family was really interested... then she sent a picture of the dog, and it had lab fur, and then sent us the price and it was rediculous ($2400 for a mutt)!
So yeah, I can see where all of the issues come from and that makes a lot of sense.
1 - 4 of 9 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top