In our first online survey in 2014 (of 522 dogs) we asked about our dogs behaviour – trainability, amicability aggression activity levels and overall satisfaction. The results were encouraging – the chart below shows the most common answer to each question.

It seems that most of our dogs were amiable, friendly, not too excitable and not aggressive. Among the 30-40% of dogs who had showed aggression at some time the aggressive behaviour occurred over food, or towards other dogs and less than 3% had ever showed aggression towards other people.

I’ve separated off the first cross labradoodles because they consistently out-performed the rest of the dogs – confirming my view that in temperament they were nearly perfect medium sized family pets. They were much loved dogs ….. but they shed hair.

The problem with this survey was that we had no point of comparison with other dogs in the general population and it’s possible that any group of dogs selected at random could score as well, so in our 2025 survey we chose to use a validated personality questionnaire with published results describing the average Australian pet dog.

The Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire was developed by Jacqui Ley et al and a refined validated version was reports in 2009 with 455 respondents. There were 26 questions with words to describe the dogs behaviour and the results were divided into 5 categories: Amicability, Motivation, Training focus, Extraversion and Neuroticism. The chart below compares all our 1104 dogs with the 455 dogs in the study.

And the next chart compares our O’Connell Retrievers and Minigroodles with the “average Australian dog” from the study.

The only strongly significant and the most encouraging finding is that all our dogs score significantly higher for amiability (easy going, friendly, non- aggressive, relaxed, sociable) than the average dog in the survey. Less desirably, they are a little more neurotic (fearful, nervous, submissive, timid) which means that they may be prone to anxiety under stress. Motivation (assertive, determined, independent, persevering, tenacious) isn’t their strong point but the difference is not significant and they are comparable for training focus (attentive, biddable, intelligent, obedient, reliable, trainable) and for extraversion (active, energetic, excitable, hyperactive, lively, restless).

We also looked at suitability in different environments and owner satisfaction. We found that while most of our dogs live in family houses they were also living happily in apartments and town houses. No-one was dissatisfied with their choice of an O’Connell Retriever and there were only 6 people (out of 417 owners) who were dissatisfied with their choice of a Minigroodle – 3 were disappointed by the size, one dog was guarding food and the other two had anxiety issues.

Overall we’re very pleased with the personalities of our dogs. We will be adding MCPQ results to our selection criteria in future and will monitor our breeding dogs and their puppies. We will select for amiability and away from neuroticism as we continue in our quest to breed the perfect dog….. we’re not there yet and perfection is never possible in living things, but it’s a nice goal to aim for.