He’s deemed the man who unleashed the designer dog craze, this wave of Maltipoos, puggles and shorkies.

A Doberhuahua? Not quite.

But from that Super Bowl ad to Hollywood boulevards and nearly to the White House, these pooches with cute names are pretty popular.

Hardly what Wally Conron expected – or wanted – in the late 1980s when he first bred a pair of prize canines and called the result a Labradoodle.

“I’ve done a lot of damage,” Conron said from his home in Australia. “I’ve created a lot of problems.”

“Marvelous thing? My foot,” he said. “There are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs out there.”

Conron isn’t from the show world. He was working as the puppy-breeding manager at the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia when he tried to fulfill a request from a couple in Hawaii. She had vision problems, her husband was allergic, and they wanted a dog that would satisfy their needs.

After a lot of trial-and-error, Conron discovered a solution when he bred a standard poodle with a Labrador retriever. The mix was a personal triumph, yet not a success outside his lab.

“I was very, very careful of what I used, but nobody wanted Labrador crosses. I had a three- to six-month waiting list, but everyone wanted purebreds,” the 85-year-old Conron recalled. “So I had to come up with a gimmick.

“We came up with the name ‘Labradoodle,'” he said. “We told people we had a new dog and, all of sudden, people wanted this wonder dog.”

Over the years, demand grew for Conron and other breeders. Labradoodles became a hot dog – Jennifer Aniston, Tiger Woods and Christie Brinkley are among their owners – and President Obama’s family considered a Labradoodle before picking a Portuguese water dog as the First Pet.

“When I heard he was thinking about a Labradoodle, I wrote to him and said to make sure he checked its pedigree,” Conron said.

There’s the problem that troubles him.

Conron said there are far too many unscrupulous people eager to make a buck at a dog’s expense. Rather than check the history and science, he said “horrific” puppy mills are springing up and producing unstable dogs that go unwanted and eventually are euthanized.

“Instead of breeding out the problems, they’re breeding them in,” he said. “For every perfect one, you’re going to find a lot of crazy ones.”

FILE – In this Oct. 21, 2011 file photo, Tucker, a 3-year-old Labradoodle, jumps on his owner Mike Pentz at their home in Columbus, Ohio. No Labradoodles are entered in Saturday’s, Feb. 8, 2014, agility competition at the Westminster Kennel Club, but for the first time in the show’s 138-year history, mixed breeds are welcome. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete, File)

Jay LaPrete