DOMINIC LAWSON: I got a Bernedoodle before they became the must-have dog. It’s like living with a hyper-intelligent bear that picks your pockets!

Poodle crosses have been all the rage for several years now. But suddenly, a number of recent articles claim, the most sought-after of them all is something called a Bernedoodle – a cross between a poodle and a Bernese Mountain Dog.

Which makes the Lawson household feel like (unintentional) fashion leaders. Because on November 1, 2022 we purchased a Bernedoodle. Our lives haven’t been the same since then.

When we went to the house where Luna was born eight weeks earlier, we had a good look at her parents. The mother, a Bernese Mountain Dog, was wary and territorial.

The father, a standard poodle, was much, much bigger than I expected, and full of affectionate energy. Luna was, very unusually, the only puppy in the litter. I felt quite sorry for her parents as we drove her back to our home in Sussex.

From that day on, she dominated our household, initially leaving a trail of destruction. One of her first victims was my laptop: she really enjoyed chewing and destroying the keyboard.

Long ago we had a succession of Leonbergers, mainly because we have a few ponds and we felt that our then young daughter Domenica, who has Down syndrome, would be safer if we had dogs that were naturally inclined to be protective and who were easy to train to protect. dragging people out of the water (the breed has webbed feet).

But the problem is that our Leonbergers, like so many large purebreds, did not live long: Domenica was devastated when they died relatively young.

First-generation hybrids, on the other hand, are much less susceptible to genetic disorders. Poodles were originally bred in Germany as water retrievers (‘pudel‘, means splash, and they were called poodle dog). So that, combined with our desire for ‘hybrid vitality’, was the reason we chose a Bernedoodle.

But Luna’s vitality is extraordinary. Even with three long daily walks, she never seems to get tired of playing games almost all day long.

Apparently this is a function of a very high intelligence, which she constantly manifests. She will tilt her head to one side when you talk to her, giving the impression that she is making a special effort to understand what is being said. She even does this while I’m playing chess, as if she’s trying to decipher the moves.

(This gives me an excuse to tell the old joke about the man who visited a friend and found him playing chess with his dog. “That’s great,” he said. “Not really,” said his friend, “I’ve won two’ of the last three matches.’)

One result of this, after we get over the initial chaos, is that she is very trainable: she always comes when called, even when she is in the middle of hunting something.

The woman we took her to dog training couldn’t have been more impressed (“I shouldn’t say this, but she’s my favorite”). But Luna’s sheer size seemed to worry the other owners, or rather their dogs: I could understand why what was merely exuberant friendliness could seem overwhelming. Especially because Luna has a very deep, loud bark.

One thing we didn’t anticipate was how often her fur would need to be trimmed – although of course, as a non-extinct, we knew there would be a certain amount of that.

But it’s extraordinary how quickly she seems to turn into a Yeti. And the local clipper just told us that she no longer has the strength to do the job (it requires putting Luna in a bath, a form of water immersion that she doesn’t like at all, and she’s way too powerful to be forced to go somewhere she doesn’t want to go).

Luna seems to catch everyone’s attention when we take her to our nearest town, with the most common comment being, ‘What is she? I want one.’ Although another customer at the local pet store did say, “What is that donkey doing here?”

Oh, and she’s also a pickpocket. I think this stems from my wife putting reward treats for Luna in her pocket while training.

The result is that when I sit down, she takes anything from my pocket, usually a handkerchief, with which she then runs off, treating my attempt to retrieve it as a funny game (comic curiosity is her default behavior).

As a result, most of my pants now have ripped pockets.

However, this makes my daughter laugh, which is the best sound in the world. I should add that Domenica, now 28, chose the name Luna, after the character – a 16-year-old girl – in her favorite television series, Soy Luna. They often watch it together.

And when I asked Domenica to describe her own Luna, as I told her I would write about this, she said, “Crazy. But she protects me.’ And after further thought, “She’s a bundle of joy.”

However, not everyone in the household shares that opinion. In particular, two of our three Chihuahuas (father and son), who considered the appearance of this gigantic dog to be a disgrace many years after they themselves arrived on the scene.

The solution we came up with is to have a ‘dog door’ where the hall leads to the rest of the house, with a hole in it big enough for the Chihuahuas to get through and Luna on the other side behind to let. In this way they can escape her kind attentions, which they consider a gross intrusion.

We describe it as a love-hate relationship. Luna loves them, but they hate her. The third Chihuahua, a daughter of our first, has a much better relationship and has a habit of picking bits of food from Luna’s mouth, which the giant dog is more likely to tolerate the way hippos do oxpeckers.

Growing up in London, with only one pet cat, this life of canine cacophony doesn’t come naturally to me: but my wife grew up in the countryside, always with lots of dogs in the house, so for her this is how life should be are.

In fact, I think she sees it as completely normal. But Luna, I keep telling her, is anything but normal. It’s like having a hyper-intelligent bear at home.

Would I Recommend a Bernedoodle?

Only if you have as much sense of humor as she does.