My toy cockapoo grew into a giant beast: What owners must know before buying designer
There’s no feeling that quite compares to bringing home a pet pooch for the first time – but some owners have got a lot more dog more than they bargained for.
People who splurged hefty sums to purchase a miniature Cockapoo – the designer dog crossbred from the Cocker Spaniel and the Poodle – have ended up with a huge canine lumbering around the house.
Miniature cockapoos are specifically bred with toy poodles so that, in theory, they are small in size.
Adult dogs are meant to be 10-12 inches tall and weigh 10-12lbs, but instead of having a small, teddy-bear lookalike, a string of owners have been left with huge dogs weighing several stone.
When UK-born Kitty Morse, who now lives in the Netherlands, purchased a black cockapoo from a breeder in Cheshire, she expected a medium-sized fluffy dog.
The pooch was advertised as a ‘Gorgeous F1 all black Cockapoo puppy’, alongside two snaps of the adorable pooch.
However, the dog, though he’s no less adorable, quickly transformed into a canine triple the size with wavy hair.
Similarly, TikTok user Ria, 21, who goes by @jazzmariax, wanted a ‘small’ dog and so she settled on purchasing a cockapoo.
TikTok user Ria, who goes by @jazzriax on the platform, was shocked to see her canine grow quadruple its size in just seven months
At the time of purchase, the adorable pooch appeared to be a miniature size – but things quickly changed
Fast forward seven months later, and the pooch was quadruple its size compared to the time of purchase.
‘They said he was going to stay small,’ the content creator added in the post’s caption.
Elsewhere, owners Liam Griffin and Tiffany Kingdon, from Coventry, purchased ‘miniature cockapoo’ Winnie for £2,000, and expected her to weigh no more than a stone.
At the time of purchase, Winnie was 11 weeks old and weighed 4.6kg, but soon enough, she defied the couple’s expectations and grew to a whopping 32kg by her first birthday.
Liam told The Sun, ‘We love her to bits but it’s a good job we’ve got a house with a garden. I don’t know why the breeder passed her off as a miniature dog. It was very irresponsible.’
The breeder’s blunder didn’t appear to be so innocent either. Liam added, ‘The guy asked us to send him some pictures but when we tried, they just bounced back. It seems he used a burner phone for the sale of the litter of pups and then moved on.’
After speculating over Winnie’s breed, Liam and Tiffany settled on a DNA test, which revealed her to not be a miniature cockapoo at all, but a Poodle and a Irish Setter Cross.
When Liam Griffin purchased Winnie (pictured together), he thought she would grow to be just over a stone – but soon she weighed 32kg
Winnie (pictured) was sold to the couple from Coventry as a miniature cockapoo puppy for £2,000
Meanwhile, Charlotte Fallowfield appeared on This Morning earlier this week to tell the story of how she got her hands on her sweet pooch Waffle.
She was over the moon when she brought home her miniature cockapoo puppy, but as soon as he started growing, alarm bells started to ring – and she soon realised that he wasn’t the breed that they originally wanted.
Charlotte expected Waffle to weight six to 11kg and 25 to 38cm tall.
But Waffle – who is a Sproodle – weighs between 22 to 32kg and is 45 to 55cm in height.
A Sproodle is a mix between a Springer Spaniel and a Poodle.
Charlotte told the presenters: ‘Due to my allergies, I wanted one that was slightly hypoallergenic, one that was small enough that he wouldn’t injure me, we saw him advertised online and went to meet him and just fell in love with him straight away.’
Co-host Ben Shepard asked, ‘You did think something was a little bit off, didn’t you?’
Charlotte explained: ‘We asked to see him with the mother and puppies, we weren’t given that chance.
A This Morning guest revealed that she got the shock of her life when the adorable cockapoo puppy wasn’t what she thought she bought
The guest explained that she paid £800 for Waffle (pictured) – and confessed the price ‘should have given us an indication something wasn’t right’
Charlotte thought that she had come home with a miniature Cockapoo – but he kept on growing (Waffle is pictured as a puppy)
‘I was pressed to make a deposit the night I saw him. They actually wanted full payment, which I refused to do.
‘They insisted we take him home straight away, which I said I’m not prepared. Something felt a little bit off. But we’d fallen in love with him, that’s the trouble.
‘When we did go back to get him, I insisted on seeing the mother, they dragged a black shaking dog, she looked terrified out of a barn, she wasn’t allowed in the house, and I wasn’t allowed to see her with Waffle.
‘I said to my partner somethings not right here, I wasn’t prepared to leave him.’
She then explained that they paid £800 for the pup and it ‘should have given us an indication something wasn’t right’.
Ben asked: ‘What would you say to anyone going out there and getting a dog like this?’
Charlotte said: ‘I think just generic adverts on websites on or Facebook or social media sites, you’ve got to be really cautious.
‘In hindsight, we should have gone to a genuine breeder who is licensed with the council, checked out those credentials.