How Much Labradoodle Puppies Cost & Factors That Boost The Price
Some breeds of dogs are cheaper or more expensive than average. Here’s how much a labradoodle puppy costs (Explained!)
How much do Labradoodle puppies cost?
$1,500 or $2,000 is normal for a healthy, properly-bred Labradoodle. You might have to pay more like $4,000 if you want a Labradoodle with a rare color scheme. Smaller Labradoodles are more expensive than bigger ones.
I bought a Labradoodle puppy for $2m500 a few years ago, which is a higher-than-average price. You can get a perfectly healthy Labradoodle for $1m500, but it’s risky to look for a much lower price than that.
How Much is a Labradoodle Puppy
Labradoodles commonly cost anywhere from as little as $500 to as much as $4,000. A lot of the time, cheaper dogs are not properly bred and will have health problems.
Labradoodles Are Somewhat Expensive
Demand for Labradoodles has been growing for the last couple of decades without breeders producing more of these dogs. This means somewhat high prices. It is normal to have to pay extra for a breed that is in demand.
Shipping Costs Are Expensive
If you buy a Labradoodle from a breeder in a different state, they will fly it to you, which will cost hundreds of dollars. You also won’t be able to meet the dog’s parents first this way.
Buying a dog from a breeder a long way away isn’t always a bad idea. However, it should not be your first choice.
Breeder Reputation
If you want to save money and take risks, you can get your puppy from a breeder who is not well known. However, I don’t recommend this.
A Labradoodle should live for 12 years and should be a healthy dog. You are more likely to end up with a sickly dog if you try to save money this way.
Breeders and Health Checks
A breeder should take their dog to the vet and have a full physical exam to make sure the dog is healthy. This initial health check should include:
- Checking the health of the dog’s mouth
- Listening to the heart and breathing to detect problems
- Checking the eyes for glaucoma, cataracts, and other problems
- Looking at the dog’s fur and skin
- Checking the joints and the jaw’s range of motion
Taking Blood Samples
A responsible breeder will also take their dog to the vet for blood tests. Blood tests can find Brucellosis and heartworms. Antibiotics and other medications can treat these diseases. The dog will also get a fecal exam to check for things like worms, which could make the dog unable to have children.
Eye Checks
A reputable breeder will also get the dog’s eyes checked and certified. The dog needs a CERF (Canine Eye Registration Foundation) certification that proves it does not have cataracts or other eye diseases that can be inherited.
Hip Checks
A dog will also have its hips X-rayed multiple times. The X-rays will be sent to the OFA (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals) to make sure that the hips are healthy. A dog with genetic hip problems should not breed.
Genetic Tests
While a breeder cannot perform every possible test, they can perform more than one of them. They can make reasonably sure that the litter of dogs will be healthy and long-lived. A breeder might use genetic tests to see if their dogs have genes for diseases common to their breed.
Labradoodle Prices in the US
Different states have different prices, and so do different breeders in each state. Differences between states are probably much less than differences between breeders. Some examples of prices are:
- $2,500 from Lazy Mountain Labradoodles in Alaska
- $1,500 to $1,800 from Pick-A-Doodle Farms in Arkansas
- $3,000 from Southern Charm Labradoodles in Georgia
- Up to $4,000 from Dixie Magnolia Labradoodles in Mississippi
- $1,500 from Gouge Family Labradoodles in Vermont
- $1,200 from Turkey Hill Doodles in Oklahoma
- $750 from New Beginning Labradoodles in Wyoming
Other Costs
Labradoodles are somewhat expensive to own, so you might end up spending more than ten times the cost of buying the dog over the dog’s lifetime. It may cost more than $2,000 to more than $3,500 per year to own a labradoodle, often more than buying the dog. If your Labradoodle lives for 12 years, costs $3,500 per year and costs $2,500 to buy, the lifetime cost could be 45000 dollars.
Initial Purchases
You will first need to buy a dog crate, a dog bed, food bowls, and a harness/
Some of these things never have to be replaced. Others, like toys, have to be replaced many times.
What Do Food and Treats Cost?
It depends on the size of your dog and the price of the food. Sometimes, food is reasonably cheap. A big Labradoodle that is the size of a Labrador might only cost around $700 per year, and it might cost as little as $350, though I don’t recommend low-quality dog food. You might spend much less than that each year on a small Labradoodle.
You can also make your own food for your dog, though this isn’t necessarily healthier (your dog might not get all the minerals and vitamins it needs) or cheaper.
The best way to feed your dog properly is with high-quality dog food. You can feed a dog high-quality dog food most of the time and treats or “people food” sometimes.
High-Quality Dog Food Brands
NomNomNom Dog Food
One of the best brands you can get is NomNomNom. It is a highly nutritious brand that can help your puppy develop into a strong, healthy dog.
NomNomNom is a meal delivery service for dogs. If you tell the company about your dog, their nutritionists will create ideal food for your dog.
While NomNomNom is expensive, it may be worth it. Remember that the healthier your dog is, the less likely you will need to take it to the vet for an expensive treatment. NomNomNom will update your dog’s diet as your dog grows.
American Journey Dog Food
American Journey is a relatively cheap but still nutritious choice. It is made from decent ingredients and includes chelated minerals so that your dog can digest it easily. It is not quite as good as more expensive dog food, but it is still healthy.
Taste of the Wild Dog Food
Taste of the wild is one of the most popular premium dog food brands. It is made out of real roasted meat, not only beef but bison and venison. Taste of the Wild Dog Food also contains antioxidants from real fruits and vegetables and chelated minerals for easy digestion.
Grooming Costs
Professional groomers save time and do a great job, but they cost a lot. If you get your dog groomed once every two months for $50 or $75, you might spend up to $450 per year or five or six thousand in total.
You can reduce the lifetime cost to a few hundred dollars in total if you groom the dog yourself. You will need a
Veterinary Costs
Sometimes, a medical procedure can cost thousands of dollars. If you take your dog in for regular checkups, you can treat health problems before they get worse.
A general check up costs about $50, and usually only needs to happen once a year. Some other small expenses are vaccine boosters ($20 a few times a year), heartworm tests ($50 yearly), and fecal tests ($35 yearly).
Some medium-sized expenses include allergy tests (two or three hundred), dental cleaning (a hundred to a few hundred), and geriatric screening (about $100 per year after age 7).
Surgery and Insurance
A lot of the time, your Labradoodle will live its whole life without ever needing surgery. However, surgery can cost thousands of dollars. To avoid these costs, you should buy insurance, which costs about $500 per year.
Training
If you train your dog yourself, it won’t cost anything. Trainers charge $30 to $80 per class.
You might spend $200 to $600 on six classes. If you can afford more, you might send your dog to a training school for $500 to $1,250 per week.
Coat Color and Price
You can find Labradoodles in a wide variety of coat colors. If you want a rarer color, you may have to pay more.
Certain multi-colored coats that many people want are more expensive. You might have to pay as much as an extra $1,000 for a dog with a specific coat color.
Labradoodle Colors
Not all breeders charge more for Labradoodles of specific colors. There is no clear answer to how much a Labradoodle of each color costs. Usually, the rarer the color is, the more expensive.
Blue Labradoodles
Blue Labradoodles are a somewhat rare type of doodle. They are not truly blue.
At first, Blue Labradoodles are black. Later on, they acquire a grey and somewhat blueish tone. The dog’s skin is also a greyish-blue color. They are not likely to have blue eyes, but a few do.
Black Labradoodles
Black Labradoodles are more common than Labradoodles of many other colors. The nose, paws, and eyes are all black.
Red Labradoodles
Red is the rarest of all colors for Labradoodles. A Red Labradoodle is difficult to breed.
Sometimes, a cream-colored Labrador and a darker Poodle produce a Red Labradoodle. The combination of a red coat and a black nose makes these beautiful dogs.
Cream Labradoodles
While you won’t find a truly white Labradoodle, Cream Labradoodles are pretty close. Most of the dog’s fur is nearly white, but a lot of it is yellowish.
Brown Labradoodles
Brown Labradoodles are common dogs that a breeder won’t charge extra for. Breeders can easily find a darker poodle and a darker labrador.
Tuxedo Labradoodles
Tuxedo Labradoodles are fancy dogs that have part black and part white coats. The belly and legs are white, but the rest is black, giving the impression of a tuxedo.
Cafe Labradoodles
These coffee-colored or beige dogs get their color relatively late, after one to three years. They look very cute with their rose-colored noses.
Chalk Labradoodles
Chalk Labradoodles are even closer to white than cream Labradoodles. Their fur is an off-white color without much yellow coloring, and their nose is black.
Caramel Labradoodles
Caramel Labradoodles have a lot of yellow and some reddish fur. Unlike yellow or Red Labradoodles, they have brown noses.
Sable Labradoodles
The roots of a Sable Labradoodle’s hair are red/orange/tan with the hair farther up being brown or black. The dogs have a lot of brown fur and some large black patches.
Parchment Labradoodles
Parchment Labradoodles are the color of coffee with a lot of milk in it. They have pink noses, and as puppies, their fur is the color of milk chocolate.
Silver Labradoodles
Silver Labradoodles have a mix of charcoal and silver fur. There are often patches of one color inside another. The puppies start out black, and the silver color doesn’t appear for a few years.
Coat Color and Traits
It is not a myth that dogs with different colors behave differently. Dogs of different colors behave somewhat differently and are vulnerable to different health problems.
There is not yet much scientific evidence for this, but that does not mean it is a myth. For example, black labradors quite likely have a somewhat shorter life expectancy.
Behavior and Health By Color
While there is not yet much known about Labradoodle behavior by color, we know more about Labradors. You might expect a Labradoodle to act like a Labrador of the same color, but this might be only weakly true.
- Chocolate Labradors are energetic, somewhat hard to train, and somewhat short-lived. They are slightly rare. Despite their great energy, they are not usually used as service dogs.
- Yellow labs vary in color, from almost white to almost red. They might be the friendliest.
- Black labs are calm and affectionate. Hunters often use them. They are the most common color.
- Red labs are the darkest of yellow labs. They are similar to yellow labs in health and friendliness.
- White labs are usually healthy as long as they are particularly light-colored yellow labs instead of albinos. The fairly few white labs that are albinos often have serious health problems.
- Silver labs are chocolate labs that have a silvery color. They have the same health problems that chocolate labs do.
Key Takeaways
- The cost of a Labradoodle puppy can be anywhere from well under $1,000 to about $4,000. Very cheap Labradoodles may have health problems if they were not bred responsibly. Labradoodles that cost about $1,500 or $2500 are usually fine.
- Labradoodles cost around $2,200 or $3,500 per year. You might have to spend $45,000 or even more during the dog’s life as Labradoodles are fairly long-lived and fairly expensive dogs.
- While food is a significant part of the cost, it is much less than half of it. Don’t feed your dog the cheapest brand of food you can get. Feed it a premium brand, this will keep your dog much healthier.
- The cost of a dog bed, crate, leash,
collar , and toys is all pretty low, only a tiny part of the dog’s total lifetime cost. - Veterinary costs can be high. Prevention is cheaper than treatment, so give your dog all the vaccinations it needs on it.