Australian Labradoodle Breeders British Columbia | List of Top 2 Breeders

British Columbia’s two ALAA-registered Australian Labradoodle breeders sit at opposite ends of the province’s climate spectrum, one in the mild Fraser Valley near Vancouver and the other in the colder Shuswap country of the BC Interior.

Both hold a Silver Paw distinction and have been ALAA members for well over a decade, long enough to build real track records with local families.

British Columbia’s Two ALAA-Registered Breeders

Sun Valley Labradoodles operates out of Mara, a small community in BC’s Interior roughly four hours northeast of Vancouver, while Chilliwack Labradoodles is based in the city of Chilliwack, about 100 kilometers east of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley.

The two programs sit in genuinely different climates, which matters more in BC than in most provinces given how much the terrain varies between the coast and the interior.

Sun Valley Labradoodles

Angela St.Onge runs Sun Valley Labradoodles from Mara, a small community on the shores of Mara Lake in the Shuswap region, about 20 kilometers south of Sicamous and 18 kilometers north of Enderby.

The program has held ALAA membership since 2007, one of the longest tenures among Canadian members.

The community itself takes its name from John Andrew Mara, a 19th-century merchant and politician who once owned extensive ranchland between Enderby and Sicamous, and the area today draws visitors for houseboating, water-skiing, and trout fishing on Mara Lake.

Location: Mara, British Columbia
Website: Sun Valley Labradoodles
Registry: ALAA (Silver Paw)

Chilliwack Labradoodles

Sherry Heggs operates Chilliwack Labradoodles from the city of Chilliwack, which sits in the Fraser Valley between the Fraser River and the Canada-US border. The program joined ALAA in 2019 and has built a Silver Paw health-testing record since.

Chilliwack was incorporated back in 1873, making it one of British Columbia’s oldest municipalities, and about two-thirds of the surrounding land still falls within the province’s Agricultural Land Reserve, with farming remaining central to the local economy.

Location: Chilliwack, British Columbia
Website: Chilliwack Labradoodles
Registry: ALAA (Silver Paw)

British Columbia’s Silver Paw Breeders

Sun Valley Labradoodles and Chilliwack Labradoodles both currently carry ALAA’s Silver Paw emblem, a step above basic membership that requires a breeder to repeat and maintain expanded hip, elbow, and other health screening across their breeding dogs rather than testing once and stopping.

Sun Valley operates in BC’s Shuswap interior while Chilliwack Labradoodles sits in the Fraser Valley, giving buyers two genuinely different climates to choose between.

Neither program has reached the higher Golden or Platinum tiers, which call for an additional round of testing on top of the Silver requirements.

That doesn’t make either program’s testing record incomplete; it simply reflects how many generations of documented health screening ALAA has verified so far, a figure that can climb as a breeding program matures.

Buyers can ask either breeder for their current ALAA certificate and the specific health clearances behind their Silver Paw status before committing to a puppy.

British Columbia’s Delayed Breeder Licensing Law

In 2016, British Columbia adopted the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association’s Codes of Practice for kennel and cattery operations as a welfare standard.

In 2017, the provincial government amended the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to create the legal framework for a future dog and cat breeder licensing system.

That framework gave inspectors authority to enter and assess breeding facilities and gave the province power to suspend or cancel a breeder’s license once one existed.

Nearly a decade later, the actual licensing and registration system still hasn’t been put into force.

The province ran stakeholder consultations on what the rules should look like, and as recently as 2024 the government’s own materials still described breeder licensing as a future step rather than something currently required.

In practice, that means BC breeders, including both of the province’s ALAA members, currently operate under the general welfare standards of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, enforced by the BC SPCA, without a breeder-specific license or registration requirement yet in force.

The 2016 Codes of Practice that BC did adopt still matter in the meantime, since SPCA inspectors use them as a benchmark when responding to welfare complaints.

Those codes cover housing size and ventilation, food and water access, and the level of care and supervision breeding dogs need, even though no license currently requires a breeder to prove compliance before opening for business.

British Columbia’s Two Breeder Climates

Chilliwack has a mild, oceanic climate typical of the Fraser Valley, with wet falls and winters and warm, often sunny summers; the city has even recorded a summer high above 43 degrees Celsius.

About two-thirds of the surrounding land sits within BC’s Agricultural Land Reserve, and farming remains central to the local economy.

Mara, by contrast, sits in the BC Interior’s Shuswap country, a region shaped by the last ice age’s glaciers and known for genuinely cold winters; locals historically cut ice blocks directly from Mara Lake before mechanical refrigeration existed.

A Labradoodle raised in the Chilliwack area will experience a noticeably gentler winter than one raised near Mara, which is worth factoring into how much coat maintenance and cold-weather conditioning a new owner should expect.

Chilliwack’s wetter climate also means coat drying and mildew prevention deserve more attention than they would in a drier region; a wool or fleece coat that stays damp after a Fraser Valley rain needs a proper towel-and-dryer routine to avoid skin irritation.

Mara’s drier but colder interior climate flips that concern toward frostbite risk on exposed paw pads during hard winter cold snaps, so a Sun Valley puppy’s new owner should ask about booties or paw wax for the coldest months.

How the Australian Labradoodle Began

The Australian Labradoodle traces back to a specific problem: a woman in Hawaii needed a guide dog, but her husband’s severe allergies ruled out every breed her local guide dog school could normally place.

Wally Conron, working for the Royal Guide Dogs Association of Victoria in Australia, crossed a Labrador Retriever with a Standard Poodle in the late 1980s to try to solve it.

The first litter had the right guide-dog temperament, but shedding was still a problem, so later breeders added Cocker Spaniel, Irish Water Spaniel, and Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier to the mix.

Australian kennels Tegan Park and Rutland Manor spent the early 1990s stabilizing that combination into the breed recognized today, and those same foundation bloodlines still appear in the pedigrees behind both Sun Valley Labradoodles and Chilliwack Labradoodles.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

British Columbia’s ALAA roster is small but well established, with both Sun Valley Labradoodles and Chilliwack Labradoodles carrying more than half a decade of membership and a Silver Paw health-testing record between them.

Their locations in genuinely different BC climates mean the practical choice often comes down to which region’s weather a family is already prepared for.

The province’s long-delayed breeder licensing framework is worth watching, since BC has signaled for years that a registration system is coming without actually putting one in force.

Until that changes, the clearest way to vet any BC breeder is to confirm their standing directly with the registry rather than relying on provincial oversight that doesn’t yet exist.

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