£5000 for a 2 year old cockerpoo!

[Swooningmonkey]

I’m I mad or is this an insane amount for a cross breed dog?!

@tara66

I read I think in Country Life that they are not an actual breed as such in that you always have to cross a cocker spaniel with a poodle to get the cockerpoo every time. Same with labradoodle. They can't produce them by mating cockerpoos with cockerpoos. So they are rarer and I suppose that's what makes them more expensive.

It's not rare. The vast majority of cockapoos are from a parent of each breed. It would be harder to find one from two cockerpoos

I wonder if it's £5k because the dog hasn't been spayed and could be used for breeding? If people are paying £2k or more a puppy, then there's still earnings to be had out of a litter of that dogs pups even after the purchase price is deducted?

If that's the case then that's awful ☹️

The same is going on with cats. Prices have gone through the roof because of Covid. I've had my first litter this year and the amount of enquiries have been shocking. I checked prices recently.... bonkers. I'd wait a year to get a pet until this craze stop. I bet there'll be tonnes of animals needing new homes.

It's probably stolen. There have been so many dog thefts since lockdown to profit from this increased need for a dog. Poor thing☹️

It’s unlikely to be stolen if she’s been on there for that length of time.

It’s a difficult one because as someone linked earlier it is supply and demand and this is the same with anything - houses, labour, travel - it might seem unpalatable that sentient beings we love have a value, but the fact is that they do.

The cross-breed/pedigree comments do grate, though. It’s like someone berating me for spending £70 on a New Look dress when I could get a Ted Baker one for that price. Well yes, if I cared about the label, that’s true, but I’m not buying it for the label, I’m buying it to wear because it suits me. Same with dogs, I’m not interested in a pedigree as I don’t want to show or breed, I want a pet.

Why would you sell your puppies for a large amount under the market value? Would you do that with your house in an attempt not to be greedy because of the housing crisis?
You can't compare dogs and houses. Generally, when selling your house you are buying another one in the same inflated market, or leaving the it to heirs who are probably also struggling to buy or pay off mortgages.

Serious breeders are still selling their puppies at pre-lockdown prices: I know one who breeds top-end gundogs out of health tested parents with field trial awards coming out of their ears. Those dogs go for a grand normally. She has a litter about to go, and is charging what she always does.

That said, she is comfortably off. If I had a litter and was a bit skint, I might bump up puppy prices by a few hundred quid for anybody I hadn't already made arrangements with. But the amounts at the moment are just insane.

Breeders are businesses
Actually, many are not, not in the normal sense of the term. I've known quite a few people breed their working gundog or family pet just the once to keep one to continue their line. They might clear a few grand at the end of several months of planning, anxiety and hard work, always risking that it might go wrong and and they end up with big financial loss after a C-section for two puppies.

“The cross-breed/pedigree comments do grate, though. It’s like someone berating me for spending £70 on a New Look dress when I could get a Ted Baker one for that price“

Except it’s like paying £70 for a dress someone’s cobbled together from a new look and ted baker dress and you don’t know which bits of the two dresses are in yours and you could have bought either original dress for less money...

We’d happily have a young rescue dog, only we wouldn’t meet the criteria as Dd2 is just 6. We aren’t in a particular rush so I guess we’ll just wait for prices to return to normal.

I wonder if it's £5k because the dog hasn't been spayed and could be used for breeding?

I think this is more likely it.

And if it was a dress I really liked what would be the problem with that?

If I looked at both original dresses, thought both were all right but not quite right for me and then I saw this cobbled together dress that silly people refused to look at because it was cobbled together ignoring the fact it wS actually a beautiful dress why would it remotely bother me?

People like different things. If people like cross breeds, and I’ll unapologetically say I do, what’s the problem? I also like many Heinz 57 dogs with no discernible breed whatsoever!

Looking at dogs 'for adoption' (our beloved dog died recently) I've been shocked to see how many older dogs are suddenly needing to be privately rehomed at a price tag of £££. I do understand that people might want to deter people rehoming on a whim by charging more than a token fee, but this looks uncomfortably like cashing in on the family pet .

“And if it was a dress I really liked what would be the problem with that?”

You wouldn’t know, you can’t see which bits from which dress until well after you’ve bought it... could have a different front and back, the skirt could be 8 panels of two different lengths, it could have half a scoop neck and half a sweetheart neckline, it might not even work properly as a dress anymore, it could be a play suit now...you’ve no clue.

I mean there’s nothing wrong with it in terms of you liking it, you don’t know you’re going to because you don’t know what you’re getting and you’re not paying extra for effort from the dressmaker either...

So it’s a bit weird that it costs more.

It isn’t weird at all. People pay for what they want, and what they want tends to be what they like. It’s an ongoing argument on this board, and it baffles me. Pedigree dogs are fine and good if you wish to show and/or breed the line, but for most people who want a family pet, they just tend to go for the dog they want to have.

I personally really don’t understand this. I don’t care about a dogs pedigree. All that matters to me is that it’s a breed or I suppose more accurately type that I feel I can personally control and fits into my lifestyle, and that it comes from somewhere responsible.

I've seen this with cats people selling standard moggies for £400 just because she had female gingers. Unregistered ragdolls/mainecoons for over £600 when the parents aren't even health tested or pedigree themselves. Even half breed cats are selling for more than I paid for my registered pedigree ragdoll who came from champion lines. Unfortunately people do pay for these poor animals and so it continues.

It seems a lot to me. Our daughter has just paid £1200 for a trained, 2 year old working cocker with a decent pedigree. I thought that was a lot but it’s a sweet little thing, came with all his belongings and it’s recall is excellent.
Ours was £120 with full pedigree but that was reimbursed by the Dalmatian trust as his vaccinations had slipped.

“All that matters to me is that it’s a breed or I suppose more accurately type that I feel I can personally control and fits into my lifestyle”

But you don’t know that it is with a cross, that was my point about it being weird that they cost more.

I’ve owned a variety of breeds and mongrels (as in no clue what was in there) I foster and never know what I’m going to get...

So not knowing that it’s way more unpredictable which traits are going to be inherited wouldn't particularly be an issue for me.

But paying more for unpredictability just doesn’t make sense... that’s why people always talk about the price of a crossbreed being so high.

You’re basically saying you’re happy to pay more money to give yourself less chance of a dog being what you want.

we had been planning to get a second dog this year, but put plans on hold due to lock down. I want to wait until things are more back to normal before bringing a new dog to our home, so that they don't get too confused.
So now I am waiting for the rescue centres to fill up then we will take one of the abandoned dogs.

I’d politely disagree tbh tab, yes of course you get some variation; I’ve known arsey Labs and wimpy Dobermans and so on but as a rule the cockerpoo/cavapoo dog tends to be outgoing and friendly and robust, food family pets.

I’m not saying there are never exceptions but a well bred and well socialised pup belonging to this type won’t be a ”difficult” first dog as a rule.

cherry, do we get a photo? Love spaniels

“I’d politely disagree tbh”

Well we can disagree on whether they’re not often difficult but most I meet more with separation anxiety than without and I see a lot going through rescues with a bite history because of severe resource guarding issues...

But that traits are less predictable with crosses isn’t opinion... it just is...

Plenty of puppies of all breeds and types, entirely pure bred or a true Heinz 57 can have separation anxiety. My spaniel did (pedigree, not cross.)

“Plenty of puppies of all breeds and types, entirely pure bred or a true Heinz 57 can have separation anxiety. My spaniel did (pedigree, not cross.)”

Yep, both spaniels and poodles are kind of well known for being a bit clingy at the very least, lol

But my point wasn’t actually that they’re more difficult it’s that it’s unpredictable precisely because they’re crossed, physically and behaviourally are they going to get a poodle trait for certain things, a cocker trait, a double dose or somewhere in between on a sliding scale? Who knows?

Most of them are great, why would they not be? Dogs are great lol

But when they cost more than either original breed, it is paying more for being less predictable.

But people want to pay more, otherwise they would just buy the spaniel or poodle!

Some dogs are just more popular than others and it was ever thus, and there are fashions in the dog world just as there are trends with cars, home interior, clothing and holiday destinations. It’s pointless endlessly saying ‘but Spain is unpredictable, France is so much better, why pay more to go to Spain’ if people have decided they want to go to Spain. By all means point out the great things about France, but don’t put down Spain to do so (and I don’t mean you but disparaging comments generally about cross breeds.)

“and I don’t mean you but disparaging comments generally about cross breeds.”

The thing is, people take comments that aren’t disparaging to be that... commenting on the price isn’t meant as some sort of weird label status thing, it’s usually people just going, eh? Why are they more money? Because it’s not logical that they are.

If you want to go with holidays, it’s like booking one of those last minute deals where you know what country you’re going to, but not where... only it costs more than just picking the hotel yourself.

I mean, you’ll probably still have a nice holiday, but there was no real reason to pay more for it other than the holiday company could make more money.

Years ago all these cross breeds would have been called mongrels.

Cockerpoo mated to cockerpoo would be an F2 I believe. And cockerpoo mated back to one of parent breeds is F1.