The Australian Cobberdog originated in Australia, where there was a perceived need for a specialist breed with a low- to non-shedding coat and a therapy/service dog-type temperament.
It has been developed over decades of infusions and timely combinations of many breeds to ” fine-tune” the temperament and breed characteristics. Some were kept, and others were considered failures. As a result, the Australian Cobberdog has some ancestors in common with many different breeds.
The Founder of the Australian Cobberdog was an Australian woman named Beverley Rutland-Manners (of Rutlands). Her daughter Angela (Mellodie Woolley of Tegan) was the visionary who saw beyond the failed experiment abandoned by the Guide Dogs Association in its attempt to produce a low to non-shedding guide dog and proceeded to develop what she hoped would become a pure breed with the help of her mother.
Even though they had the same goal from the outset, each worked on their own individual breeding programs and sporadically combined bloodlines for some time. When Mellodie became too ill to breed dogs for several years, Beverley worked on developing a new breed but with similar aspirations. She named this breed The Australian Cobberdog because in Australia, your best friend, the one you can always rely on, is known as your ‘cobber’.
In 2011, Beverley approached the Master Dog Breeders and Associates (MDBA) with her records and extensive data to submit her application to have the Australian Cobberdog registered as an MDBA Pure Breed in Development.
Since Mellodie was the visionary who had done much of the work to establish the first bloodline basis from which the new breed was drawn, she was invited to take part in the direction and development of the new breed, in 2014 which she gladly accepted.
Many hard decisions have been made to ensure the health, predictability of temperament, characteristics, and management requirements of the breed have been optimised. The goal was to create a low- to non-shedding breed, allergy-friendly with a non-aggressive, easily trainable nature suitable as a therapy, service, or emotional support dog. Several generations passed before an infusion was considered a success or failure. Until this occurred, the progeny of infusions were kept in separate breeding pods and not allowed out into the general gene pool until validated.
The continuing development of the Australian Cobberdog provides a great example of how modern science can best be used to achieve a recognisable, predictable breed that has been given every chance at good health, ample genetic diversity, and quality of a long life.
The Australian Cobberdog continues in its journey toward reaching the necessary criteria to attain official breed recognition by dedicated foundation breeders, who have as their primary focus the health and temperament of the dogs whilst striving toward the long-term vision for the breed. Part of that vision is their commitment to breeding dogs that will meet the purpose of the breed, the individual breed standard, and temperament.
Though the roots of the Australian Cobberdog will always be associated with the mixed breed Australian Labradoodle, the finished product is far removed from that and is a new breed, bred selectively by breeders who are interested in future generations and not just the litter on the ground, to get a healthy, identifiable, and predictable dog more reliably suited to service, therapy, and assistance work.
The Master Dog Breeders and Associates [MDBA], which registers canines from all countries, has been selected as the ONLY registry to keep the Australian Cobberdog stud registry, to ensure it has unique DNA, and protect it from potential splinter groups.
MDBA entered into a contract with the founder to accept the exclusive role of taking the Australian Cobberdog Breed to reach the necessary criteria to be MDBA recognised as a breed in its own right whilst ensuring long-term health and the breed’s future is protected. Because of the threats to any breed in development and the history of divisions in the gene pool as this breed has proceeded, the founder determined that only one pedigree registry worldwide should have the sole right to produce pedigrees for The Australian Cobberdog. This protects the breed as much as possible whilst maintaining its intended goal, where the dogs being produced clearly belong to one pure breed, are predictable in characteristics, and remain healthy.
A certified pedigree issued by the MDBA is the only way to authenticate a dog is truly an Australian Cobberdog.
Breeders must maintain the goal that eventually, the breed will have hundreds of breeding dogs tested and graded as healthy, fitting the desirable breed characteristics and capable of breeding true into the future and select accordingly.