What to feed 8-week poochon pup?

[Sammsxx]

Hi all,

Becoming pup "parents" for our first time in 2 weeks when we'll collect our 8 week poochon puppy and wondered if I could get some advice on what to feed her.

A lot of the YouTube videos I've been watching on the subject seem to have an affiliation angle which I am finding difficult to look past.

The breeder hasn't been super forthcoming in the pup's menu in her 8 weeks of existence, but has remarked that they're feeding her cooked chicken and yoghurt. We baulked at this, but maybe it's not so bad.

In any case, given this news, how is it advises we proceed, from collection day?

Our budget would cover the "real food" brands who prepare and send "meal plans", but we do acknowledge the benefits on kibble.

Where do we begin?

Thanks!

Also a microchip proves nothing.

Good nutrition is VITAL for having a healthy & happy family pet.
The transition from breeder to owner, especially at only 8 weeks, is super tricky. If the breeder isn't being forthcoming about the food, it's a red flag, along with the microchip etc.
Ideally you'd keep the pup on the food they had been weaned on and then gradually transition to your preferred choice/adult food as they grew, over a long period.
But if the breeder is only giving chicken & yoghurt, that's not ok. If the pups are still getting milk from the mum, then they're too young to be separated.
Tread VERY carefully, you could end up with a sickly dog here.

This sounds all sorts of wrong. Sorry OP.

Puppy should really come to you with microchip, first vaccinations and worming done. This is part of the paperwork they pass to you (ours had the vaccination card and microchip details and print out from the vets detailing treatment).

Puppy should also come with the food it is eating currently; or at the very least the breeder should be showing you what they are feeding so you can get some in ready. Then you gradually change to what you prefer to feed. (Ours is on kibble and wet mixed).

The breeder is hopefully sending you photos and videos? Ours certainly did, up until we collected her and we subsequently have sent photos etc back and kept them updated. Ours also came with an insurance via the kennel club to cover 4 weeks.

I'd be extremely concerned with the chicken and yogurt diet.

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
You couldn’t pay me to take this puppy.

Chicken and rice isn’t nutritionally complete, means pup is already at risk of malnutrition. Which can cause growth abnormalities that can need corrective surgery(from past xp with a rescue 🫠)

No breeder worth their salt would ever feed healthy puppies this. Only reason I can think of to feed chicken and rice is stomach upsets which would scream parvovirus which is fatal in puppies more often than not.

It’s a legal requirement for puppies to be microchipped and there should be documentation with the ID number on the chip available and passed over with the pup.

It’s very easy to make a place look like the perfect home for the sake of a visit, it’s also easy to just bring in stooge dogs to be the mum and dad.

Some folks might think differently but I’m a bit wary when the breeder owns the mother and the father too…I would query how old the mum is and how many litters they’ve had her pump out.

Strap in for the “abomadoodle” rant

Go to a reputable breeder and get a Bichon or a Poodle.

There is no such thing as and ethically bred oodle doodle poo. Doodle breeders are just cashing in on the trend and could not give a rats about the dogs. Have the parents been Health tested? Hip scored? There is nothing complementary about this mix, you could end up with any traits of both dogs. That’s why most dog trainers you’ll speak to of late will say the biggest problem dogs are doodles. Genetic nervousness and people (not necessarily saying you OP!) just don’t realise what they’re actually getting, fluffy teddy bear dog with the needs of a high strung working dog (There are obviously exceptions! But it’s a lottery)

A Poodle is a highly intelligent working breed and a Bichon is companion breed. If you want a friendly lap dog get a Bichon, if you want a dog to take on long walks/runs and maybe get into an activity like obedience/canicross/agility etc get a Standard Poodle if size is an issue a Toy poodle. Small dog does not equal easy dog!

Doodles aren’t hypoallergenic no dog is, it’s a myth made up to sell them. They don’t even have a more manageable coats because they end up with mixed coats making them ultimately more difficult to maintain than a standard poodle coat. You can get a poodle to look like an oodle by asking for the groomer to shape it that way I believe it’s called a teddy bear cut.

I’m so sorry to go on but I’m just so sick and angry of these poor things being created for cash by “greeders”. I’m not a pure bred elitist either I have a mix of my own (Whippet x Collie) just have a mix where it makes sense and it’s complementary and be prepared for the worst of both breeds. My collie whippet is the best of both worlds but I am incredibly lucky she turned out that way, I was totally prepared for a neurotic crackhead herding anything that moves with the speed of a whippet!

I hate it when people give these made up names to mixed breeds. It's a mongrel.

At best this is a stupid irresponsible backyard breeder with pound signs in their eyes about the ill-advised craze for "poo" mixes, at worst it's a puppy farm. (A "poochon", FFS. Read what a PP said about poodle breeds and then read it again.)

Pull out, and actually do your homework. Decide on an actual breed that suits you and find a knowledgeable breeder that gives a damn.

But there’s no such thing. It’s a mongrel. It’s not a breed.

Also agree with PP. ours is a miniature poodle. She looks fluffy and loves a cuddle on your lap. She's happy with an hours walk a day but also copes with longer walks. She's easy to train. She's chilled. Her parents were health tested. She's very healthy (poodles are generally a healthy breed). I don't get this obsession with oodle types. Just get the real thing!

Missing the point of the thread really but I don't consider a straight crossbreed to be a mongrel. A mongrel is a complete mix of all sorts, I've grown up with unidentifiable mongrels, my current dog is a 3 or 4 breed mix (or more) but I've also owned straight crosses which are slightly more predictable in terms of traits.
But in the end, they're all dogs.

Agree, officially a mongrel is 3+breeds, 2 breeds is a cross breed and one is pedigree.
People are just irritated at the fashion for certain crosses and making jibes. These kind of mixes are not for everyone but what is. 🤷
And in the end they're all dogs.

OP nothing at all in any of your posts tells me that your puppy is coming from a reliable breeder, or that you have any experience AT ALL in what taking on a puppy is going to entail.

I am not a dog person by any stretch but know that kittens ideally should still be with the mother at that age, you should see the pedigree papers of both poodle and bichon parents (even if the puppy is a mongrel) and you should have confidence in your breeder.

As for puppy care - the diet is a huge part of their development and 'chicken and yoghurt' just isn't a good enough response from the breeder, never mind a good enough died for a barely-weaned puppy.

Looking forwards, have you considered the training involved with your new puppy? It will not be toilet trained yet, won't have had any vaccinations so can't go outside - will not know what a lead means, won't have been out for walks, will only have been with its mother (hopefully) and siblings for its short life so is going to really struggle.

Please do some more research before collecting this (no doubt) cute fluffy puppy as you are opening yourself - and the pup - up to so many problems.

People are just irritated at the fashion for certain crosses

Yeah, people are. Because it leads to puppy farms and badly bred dogs with health issues. It’s a huge welfare problem.

And in the end they're all dogs.

This is the most wrong right statement ever 😩

Yes dogs are dogs, 4 legs mostly goes woof occasionally.

But a Belgian Malinois is nothing like a Pomeranian. And a Poodle is nothing like a Bichon.

I understand why people are irritated at fashionable crosses and share those concerns. That's why they are making disparaging comments, it's understandable, yes. But there are responsible people doing this too so it doesn't always follow that your fashionable cross breed is less worthy than a pedigree (whose breed traits vary widely as you point out, but they are all dogs requiring good care, careful consideration and decent quality of life, which is what I meant by they're all dogs, want implying they don't have different needs and traits, but they all deserve to have those needs met).
I think what I'm saying isn't at odds with what you're saying, I think you're reading more into what I've written than I intended. If that's my fault for wording it badly I'm sorry.

The thing with “designer crosses” is that they are exploiting dogs and dog buyers.

the market is almost exclusively aimed at first time dog owners, or those with little idea about choosing and buying a puppy. They are easily taken in by puppy farms and scam breeders.

Add that to their being fewer checks and balances with breeders- it’s not like a pedigree where you at least know by having a kc registration the bitch is not having more than x litters, that the coefficient of inbreeding is ok, that the relevant genetic checks are done etc.

cross breeding is a big thing for puppy farms as they only need one poodle sire and a load of bitches of different breeds, and can have those bitches produce as many litters as they can sell. No requirement for any health testing- to be an official “licenced breeder” only basics of food, water and shelter need to be met.

Not because they’re necessarily bad dogs, although they’re often misrepresented as “easy care”- hypoallergenic, non shedding etc which they absolutely are not, and if that is a concern you should be looking at a pedigree poodle, yorkie etc. but is is another way to reel the inexperienced dog owner in.

this is why I would never recommend a doodle or other cross. I’m sure there are good breeders out there, but in needs 10x the work, knowledge and research to find them amongst all the bad ones. Which again, an inexperienced owner just doesn’t have the knowledge to do.

Didn't all breeds that you consider "pedigree" today, start by cross-breeding anyway?

I suppose if you’d referred to the puppy as a poodle-Bichon frise cross as opposed to a “poochon”, people might assume you understood more about what you might be getting. Referring to a poochon is a bit of a red flag -is that the breeder’s term or yours?

Probably. That’s not my point though, the point is that a KC registered pedigree puppy is less likely to be puppy farmed and more likely to meet certain breeding criteria.

one bitch can have as many cross breed litters as the owner wants, if they aren’t KC reg there’s no restriction on litters per bitch.

if you don’t know much about dogs or buying puppies KC registered is a better place to start than gumtree, if you really do care about welfare.

are you going ahead with the pup?

It was a shorthand way of expressing the mix of the dog. I wouldn't have thought people would pick up on it with such passion 😂

All dogs are a mix of something. A name is just that.

In a way, not simply cross-breeding but by selecting and matching particular dogs to breed that display certain traits or qualities or features, to exaggerate that, over many many generations over years. The Jack Russell is a good example.
Pedigree dog breeding has its own problems too, with poor genetics and compromising animal welfare - just look at French bulldogs, pugs, german shepherds etc.

The issue is not with the dogs themselves, but with these 'designer crosses' comes all sorts of risks around animal welfare and criminality, because these people are feeding a trend or a fashion for a certain type of dog, and it's easy to do, as a pp explains.

It's likely these people producing crosses aren't doing it to develop a new breed type over many years in order to fill a need for a certain function or role, but are just in it for the money and don't know much or care about responsible breeding or genetic health or puppy welfare, nutrition and socialisation.

Do you have any verifiable data to backup what you've asserted?

Seeing as we're throwing out unverifiable assertions, I'll assert that there are plenty more honest non-KC breeders out there than there are dishonest.

Sure, I get that, but short of buying exclusively from KC breeders, which is what some people are suggesting, there will always be the risk.

And one should definitely not say that every non-KC breeder is problematic.

No, and my SIL has a lovely dog who is a yorkiechon and she's been amazing, but came from a 'casual' breeder somewhere random, on top of that was bought as a surprise gift sight unseen. All the red flags, but she's a lovely dog with zero issues and fits what they need exactly.

But red flags are red flags - a very young puppy being weaned on unsuitable food is one.

Have you Googled their address op? Registered business would show up. And possibly reviews...

Oh for gods sake. 8 weeks is perfectly fine for a new puppy to go to their new home.

Regarding food, ideally you want them to have the same food, and then slowly wean them on to what you want to give the puppy.

Yoghurt, as long as it’s plain yoghurt wouldn’t be the worse thing for a dog.

Hi op , had all my puppies at 8 weeks no issues.
I would keep puppy on what they are fed now ( not an ideal diet I must say ) I would do this for the first week to avoid too much change to quickly. Then slowly introduce a kibble of your choice over 10 days .