Cockapoo Puppies

The first of the poodle crosses

The Cockapoo has been around a good deal longer than the word “doodle”. Deliberate crosses of a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle turn up in the United States in the 1960s, which makes this one of the oldest of the poodle crosses and the template that a great many later ones followed. It arrived before the marketing did. The early ones were bred because somebody liked what the two breeds produced together, and the name is simply the two halves stuck end to end.

Both parents come out of working stock, which is the part people tend to skip past. Neither side started out as a lap dog. Put them together and you get a small, busy, people-focused dog with a strong streak of gundog in it, and that streak shows up in how a Cockapoo behaves around a house far more than the coat does.

What each side brings

The Cocker Spaniel is a flushing spaniel — the smallest of the gundogs, built to work in and out of cover, push birds into the air and carry them back. The name comes from the woodcock it was originally set to. Two versions of the breed exist today, the American and the English, and both were kept for the same job: a spaniel that stays close, checks in constantly and works within a few yards of the person it is out with. That close-working habit is the reason a Cockapoo tends to follow you from room to room.

The Poodle is German rather than French, whatever the haircut suggests. Pudel comes from pudeln, meaning to splash, and the dog was a water retriever bringing duck out of cold ponds. Even the famous clip was practical — hair left long over the chest and the joints, the rest taken off so the dog could swim properly. The Poodle comes in toy, miniature and standard, and which of the three stands behind a particular puppy is the single biggest thing determining how big that puppy finishes.

What the two breeds have in common is a habit of taking direction. Spaniels and retrievers were both bred to work with a person rather than at a distance from one, and that cooperative streak comes through the cross very reliably.

Size, coat and colour

There is no one Cockapoo size, because there is no one Poodle size. A toy or miniature Poodle parent produces the small dog most people picture — roughly ten to twenty pounds and ten to fifteen inches at the shoulder — while a standard Poodle parent produces a noticeably taller, leggier animal. Ask about a particular puppy’s parents and you will get far closer than any general figure can take you.

The coat runs across a range too. Some come in tightly curled like the Poodle side, some carry the loose wave that sits between the two, and some have the softer, straighter fall of a spaniel coat. All three can turn up in the same litter. Texture matters more than colour when it comes to the weekly routine, so it is worth putting your hands into a puppy’s coat rather than judging it from a picture.

Colour is wide open. Cream, apricot, red, chocolate, black and silver all appear, and the Cocker side brings parti-colour and roan into the mix — a white ground ticked through with colour that develops as the puppy grows. Many go lighter with age the way Poodles do, so a dark sable puppy at ten weeks can be a soft café colour by two years old.

Grooming as a routine

A Cockapoo coat holds its hair rather than dropping it, which means the hair ends up in the comb instead of on the floor. That is the trade, and it is a fair one as long as the comb comes out regularly.

Two or three sessions a week does it. Use a slicker brush first to open the coat, then go back through with a metal comb in sections, right down to the skin — a comb finds what a brush skims over. Behind the ears, under the collar, under the front legs and around the rear are the places to start, because the friction points come first. Most owners do it in front of the television and the dog falls asleep partway through.

Add a professional groom every six to eight weeks and you have the whole job covered. Plenty of owners keep the coat in a short, even trim year-round, which looks smart, takes minutes to maintain and suits a Florida or Tennessee summer. Keep the hair trimmed clear of the eyes, wipe the ears as part of the same session, and dry them properly after a bath. Nails a little and often rather than waiting, and start brushing the teeth early enough that the puppy decides the toothbrush is a game.

The manner: sociable, and always in the room

A Cockapoo is a people dog. The spaniel side wants to be near you and the Poodle side wants to know what you are doing, and the combination is a dog that treats every household activity as something it has been invited to. They are cheerful with visitors, easy with other dogs, and straightforward with children who have been shown how to greet one — sitting on the floor and letting the dog come over works better than reaching down.

They are also funny. The Poodle has a well-earned reputation as a clown and Cockapoos inherit the comic timing along with the brains: the toy dropped deliberately in your lap, the head tilt held a beat too long, the retrieve where the ball is offered and then withdrawn at the last moment.

Short absences are worth building into the routine from the first week, with a chew to work on and no ceremony on the way out or the way back in. A Cockapoo that learns early on that people leave and come back settles into the pattern without much fuss.

Training a dog bred to take direction

This is one of the easier crosses to teach, and the reason is in the pedigree — both parents spent generations being paid to pay attention. A Cockapoo picks up a sit, a down, a recall and a hand target in days rather than weeks, and then comes back asking for more.

Keep sessions short, cheerful and well paid. Mark the behaviour the moment it happens, pay it, and stop while the dog still wants another go. Use the same words from every adult in the house. Because food works so well on this cross, most owners measure meals and count training treats against the day’s total, which keeps the rewards worth having and means there is always a Cockapoo in the kitchen ready to work for the next piece of cheese.

The other half of teaching a clever dog is giving the brain somewhere to go. Retrieve with a wait in it, find-the-toy around the house, a handful of kibble scattered in the grass, a food puzzle while dinner is being made — ten minutes of that lands better than an extra mile of walking. Two decent walks a day and a game or two covers the physical side for most Cockapoos, and the nose work covers the rest.

Come and meet the Cockapoo puppies

Photographs flatten a Cockapoo into a coat. In front of you it is a small, springy, entirely engaged dog that arrives at your feet, sits down without being asked and looks up to see what happens next. Coat texture and adult size vary between littermates, so ten minutes on the floor with one tells you more than any description can.

Our Cockapoo puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you how a particular puppy has been getting on. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor with a puppy for as long as you like before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.