to call my cockerpoo a poodle?

Crossbreeds, mutts, mongrels, escapees (🤣) they are all lovely dogs, and deserving of a loving caring home. They tend to be healthier and less prone to a lot of the typical problems that pedigrees can get. We have had mainly pedigrees, but we always buy from a reputable KC breeder, and take a look at the dam and sire and back into the pedigree chart before we buy. If you see the same dogs too many times on the pedigree, it’s time to be wary. People pay ridiculous prices for some dogs to be honest. Worst we came across was a Bulldog bitch. Owner was telling me it cost him £8000 (mainly because it was “lilac”) but in second breath said it was never away from vets. We were sat in vets at the time. It was wheezing badly, had skin problems, poor thing. Only young as well😢

@SquashedSquid

using the laughing emoji sarcastically is childish

So was my other dog. They're both over 9 years old and have been an absolute joy. We're not having anymore so won't be adding to the problem again. We've not bred either of ours. Not going to lose any sleep about the ones we do have.

Where did your dog come from then? How long did you wait?

the issue with ethical breeders is they have long wait lists. Most people who decide to get a puppy don’t want to wait 2 years.

i do know someone who breeds cockerpoos. I have mixed feelings but I have to give it to her, she follows the same rules as the pedigree breeder I got mine from. it’s one litter every two years, no more than 2 litters per bitch, and she doesn’t have a litter unless she has more than 10 people on a wait list so the pups are all guaranteed homes. She has many people approach her for a dog who won’t wait.

mixed breeds, especially the doodlies, aren’t intentionally bred for any other reason than to make money. My pedigree breeder shows- it’s her hobby, she does crufts etc. other dogs are bred to work. Mixed breeds can’t show and rarely work.

Your dog is from a BYB.

Well I've got a mixed breed (not poodle) and he wasn't from a puppy farm. I'm not sure where my boss got his from so neither of us know if they were from a puppy farm.

Mine has got a name for his mixed breed but I don't use it. I just say what his Mum & Dad were.

Lovely little dog.

He cost the same as my pedigree dog and worth every penny.

I used to work with a woman who farmed puppies on the side. She and her husband had whatever dogs were in "fashion" at the time, and would quite literally breed from them until they wither died, or were no longer of use. The dogs and puppies were kept on land away from their house, in sheds. When a potential puppy buyer was due to visit, they'd wash the litter and bring them into the family home on a little fur rug and make it all look idyllic and wonderful. The dogs they didn't need any more were shot.

They regularly change their name on sites like Pets 4 Homes. They're breeding cockapoos and other Doodles at the moment. It was French Bulldogs and Pugs for a while but they're not as popular at the moment.

It absolutely baffles me how people are fine with buying puppies from people like this. Dogs with no backgrounds, health tests, contracts, endorsements, pedigrees, show success, KC Affix. People who advertise puppies online.

They're either really thick, or just don't care because they want a puppy NOW. Or both.

Even if he isn't thick, he either knows absolutely nothing about reputable dog breeding, or just doesn't care at all about the welfare of dogs.

ALL Doodles and designer crossbreeds are bred by disreputable, unethical "breeders". It doesn't matter how much money he spends on them, he has still added to the issue of farming mongrels with made-up names. That absolutely is thick.

Doesn’t mean he hasn’t bought from a puppy farm. Most “designer crosses” are.

they present as very slick,and the new licensing thing means they can sell being “licensed” as a positive, when in reality it just means they are producing multiple litters- ie a puppy farm.

you only need to take a look at some of the big commercial breeder websites to realise how many people are taken in.

then you have the ones who have stunt homes and bitches to convince you it’s a lovely family set up. Or the ones that kindly offer to deliver the dog to you.

then there are the people who know it’s a puppy farm but convince themselves they are “rescuing” the pup.

i have a very intelligent friend who bought from a puppy farm. Only caught on when the dog got very sick.

People let their hearts and cute puppies overrule their heads, even very intelligent people.

My boss has two poodle crosses and he's a self made millionaire and hardly thick.

He spends a fortune on dog walkers etc.

I just say mine is a poodle/cocker spaniel cross then if people want to say cockapoo then that’s up to them

The next generation will begin to breed true. After half a century you will get a breed standard.

Yep, though a few more generations I think and much less than the 500 years you estimate to become a registered breed with the KC. Still means that in the interim the term cockerpoo is a convenient, cute and fashionable name to call a particular cross.

@weegiemum Sort of proves my point above about how much dilution and you can still call a dog a cockerpoo, and/or how many characteristics they take from each breed. People are paying a fortune for "cockerpoo" puppies because they want the cute, fluffy little dogs and your brother's has come out almost all spaniel, whether through too much dilution or just chance.

Oh, I'm under no doubt that they'll become their own breed one day. I don't see that as a bad thing either.

But as it stands, there's no breed standard or regulation around them, so there's nothing to stop a 80/20 mix being referred to as a cockapoo (as things stand).

F1, F2 and hybrid. If you mate a pair of cockerpoos then you get cockerpoos in the next generation, but they may split slightly and some be more poodle others more cocker (it's not like Turner and Hooch or Lady and the Tramp btw). The next generation will begin to breed true. After half a century you will get a breed standard. After five hundred years, cockerpoos will be a breed with KC reg etc. 😀

Oh dear... Where to start?

My labradoodle is 75% poodle, 25% lab.

So basically a curly beast with no off switch where his stomach is.

Got him before the prices went wild (he's 8) and everyone loves him. I'm quite happy calling him a labradoodle even if he's really a mongrel. Everyone knows what you mean.

My brother's dog is supposedly a cockapoo but there's no poodle there at all - smooth coated bundle of energy just like every cocker I've ever met.

There's no such thing as a cockerpoo though - it's just a cute name for a poodle x cocker spaniel mix. The "cockapoo society" is just something someone has made up for money.

It's not a breed. There's no breed standard and no requirement for them to contain any specific amount of any parent breed.

Well yes, that's all kind of my point, lol.

There is no set standard so there's no requirement for "cockerpoos" to be a straight 50/50 mix. Some are, some are from two "cockerpoo" parents, some are "cockerpoos" mixed with purebred spaniels, some are mixed with poodles of various sizes etc. All classed as "cockerpoos" though.

A cocker/poodle mix with 80% poodle is still a mix of two breeds, just as a straight 50/50 mix is.

But where do you stop with this? Next generation will have even less Spaniel in it, and the next less, until eventually you have only a couple of percent Spaniel - would that still be a cockerpoo? Or when it dilutes down to under 1%? Still wouldn't be able to be registered as a poodle because of that 1% of spaniel in it.

Comes back again to the fact that cockerpoos are cross breeds, and won't be anything other than that until the KC register them as a breed which takes many generations of true breeding to fix. Basically that won't happen until they breed true enough to have a clearly identifiable type in all offspring used for breeding as a cockerpoo e.g. same coat type texture and density, very similar physical conformation, fixed colours, proportions etc. which so far they aren't. There's still plenty born under or over the "normal" size, there's a multitude of coat textures out there, and all body conformations ranging between nearly spaniel to almost poodle.

Then a decision will have to be made on whether there's only one "proper" cockerpoo type, or whether you can have variations like standard, miniature or toy poodle; KC or Cavalier KC spaniel; flat coat, curly coat, golden or Labrador retriever and so on.

I'm not sure I agree with this.

Lots of of cockerpoos are crossed back with poodles (or cockers) - their offspring are still cockerpoos even though they're made up of more poodle than spaniel (or vice versa).

It's not a cocker poo of it has 82% poodle DNA. It is a poodle cross. Cocker poos are only puppies from a cross between a cocker and a poodle.

"It's a mongrel" should be enough.