By the time a litter of Australian Labradoodle puppies reaches seven weeks old, we’ve spent every single one of those days watching them. Watching how they greet a new person. Watching how they recover when something startles them. Watching how they explore a new room, how they relate to their littermates, how they react to a sound they’ve never heard.
The formal temperament test, which we run at seven weeks of age, is the moment when all of that informal observation becomes structured. We work through a series of evaluations designed to reveal what’s actually under each puppy’s surface. Not their coat color. Not their cuteness. The wiring underneath.
It’s also one of the most important moments in deciding which puppy goes home with which family. If you’ve never seen a puppy temperament test, here’s what we’re actually looking at.
What Temperament Testing Is for an Australian Labradoodle
A puppy temperament test is a structured evaluation of how a puppy responds to a controlled set of situations. The goal is to surface the Australian Labradoodle’s natural traits, the ones that tend to stay relatively stable into adulthood, before those traits are shaped further by their adult home.
Temperament testing has been part of professional breeding for decades. The most widely used framework is the Volhard Puppy Aptitude Test, developed in the 1970s and still referenced by trainers and breeders today. Modern programs build on that foundation with newer protocols. At Loving Labradoodles, we work primarily with methods from our Empowered Breeder certification, layered onto a lifetime of practical experience our family has built across multiple breeds going back to our father’s Rottweiler program.
The seven-week timing isn’t arbitrary. Research and decades of breeder observation have shown that puppy temperament is most readable at this age, before the adolescent brain changes that come later, and before too much environmental shaping has happened in a new home.
What the Test Actually Measures
A good temperament test looks at a puppy across several distinct dimensions. Each one tells us something different about who the puppy is and what kind of family they’ll thrive in.
Sociability and People-Orientation
How does the puppy respond when a person approaches? When that person walks away? When a stranger sits on the floor and waits to see what the puppy does on their own?
Some puppies move toward people instantly. Some watch first, then approach. Some are more interested in the world around them and treat people as one part of the environment. None of these is wrong. They tell us very different things about what the puppy will need from their family.
A puppy who orients strongly toward people will likely become a velcro dog, the one who follows their person from room to room. That’s the dream for one family and a challenge for another, like a family who travels often and needs a more independent dog.
Confidence and Curiosity
We watch how each puppy approaches something new. A novel object placed in the middle of the room. An unfamiliar room they’ve never been in. A stranger sitting quietly in the corner.
Some puppies investigate fearlessly. Some hang back briefly, then approach with care. Some hesitate longer. The level of confidence we see at seven weeks is one of the more stable indicators of how a puppy will handle new situations as an adult. It tells us whether this puppy is wired for adventure, for thoughtful exploration, or for a quieter life with predictable surroundings.
Sensitivity
Sensitivity in a puppy isn’t a flaw. It’s information. We evaluate sensitivity to three things in particular: sound, touch, and sight.
A sound-sensitive puppy may flinch at a clap or a metal bowl dropping. A touch-sensitive puppy may pull back when handled in unfamiliar ways. A sight-sensitive puppy notices movement quickly, the leaf blowing across the yard, the shadow on the wall.
Higher sensitivity often produces more emotionally attuned dogs, the ones who pick up on a person’s mood without being asked. Lower sensitivity tends to produce more even-keeled dogs who don’t get rattled. The right level depends entirely on the home.
Resilience and Recovery
This is one of the most important things temperament testing reveals, and it’s not the same as confidence.
A confident puppy might never react strongly to something startling. A resilient puppy might react, even noticeably, but bounce back quickly. Both are good outcomes. What we worry about is the puppy who reacts to a startle and stays rattled for a long time. That puppy is telling us they’ll need a calmer, more predictable adult home to do their best.
Resilience is one of the best predictors of how a puppy will handle real life: a busy household, a car ride, a thunderstorm, a stranger at the door, all the small surprises that make up a normal day.
Energy and Engagement
Some puppies are constantly in motion. Some pace themselves. Some settle for long stretches and then engage intensely when something catches their interest. We’re watching baseline energy, but more importantly, we’re watching how the puppy chooses to use it.
A puppy who plays hard then crashes hard is a different dog from a puppy who maintains steady, lower-grade activity all day. Both are healthy patterns. They’re just suited to different lifestyles.
Independence and Attachment
Some puppies are content to wander a few feet away from the group and explore alone. Some stay close. Some look back over their shoulder to check in with the human in the room every few seconds.
Highly attached puppies make beautiful companion dogs but often do best in families who are home most of the time. More independent puppies handle alone time better but may not be the always-at-my-feet dog some families dream about.
What the Test Can’t Tell Us
Temperament testing is powerful, but it isn’t a crystal ball. It’s a snapshot of a young animal at one moment in time, and we want to be honest about what it doesn’t predict.
It can’t predict exactly how a puppy will behave at three years old. Adolescence reshapes dogs. The environment shapes them more. A confident puppy raised in chaos can become an anxious adult. A sensitive puppy raised in a calm, kind home can become a balanced and devoted companion.
It also can’t override family fit. A puppy with a strong velcro temperament will struggle in a home that travels four months a year, no matter how well the puppy is raised. That’s why temperament testing is one input, not the only one.
We tell families this directly. The test gives us real information. It does not give us a guarantee. Combined with everything else we know about each puppy from those seven weeks of daily observation, it’s the best signal we have before a puppy goes home.
How We Use the Results
Once we have a temperament profile for each puppy in a litter, we sit with what we’ve learned about each family who’s been waiting on that litter. We compare. We talk about it. Sometimes we pick up the phone and have a longer conversation with a family because the match isn’t obvious.
What we’re looking for is alignment between the puppy’s natural temperament and the family’s actual life. Not the life they wish they had. The life they have. The work schedule, the kids’ ages and noise level, the other pets, the activity level, the travel, the personalities of the adults in the home.
When the alignment is right, the dog has the easiest possible time settling in. The family has fewer surprises. Everyone gets to know each other faster, with less friction in the first weeks at home. That’s the goal of every match we make.Ready to Meet a Puppy Matched to Your Family?
If you’d like to see the puppies currently growing up in our program, you can visit the nursery for current litters or meet the parent dogs behind them. When you’re ready to start a conversation about which puppy might be the right fit for your family, you can submit an application and we’ll take it from there.
You can start an application when you’re ready. We’d rather make the right match slowly than the wrong match quickly. The temperament test is one of the tools that helps us do it well.
