Tips On Taking Care Of A Cockapoo Mutt?
September 14, 2009 by admin
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
I come home from college and my dad surprises me with a 6-week old cockapoo to take care of for the summer. I’ve never heard of a cockapoo mix until now. My dad said that he bought him from a friend of a friend, and he hasn’t been vaccinated yet. I had a labrador pup when I was younger, but had to give him away because of the house owner, so I don’t have a lot of experience taking care of a dog, but I’m determined to give this cockapoo a lot of love and care.
I read somewhere that since it’s a mutt (and possibly the product of a puppy mill, don’t really know who this friend of a friend of my dad’s is, but he paid them $100) that it’s more prone to health problems, but just because of that doesn’t mean that we’re going to abandon him! Just to be prepared though, what kind of health problems, if any, do cockapoos usually come across?
Basically what I want to know is:
-What good quality brand of food should I feed him?
-How do I get him to stop chewing and biting the carpet/couch/slippers?
-What kind of treats should I use to train him with?
-Is it worth it getting puppy insurance?
-How often should I bathe him?
-What kind of training methods can I use to get him to get along with my cousin’s 5-year-old chihuahua/jack terrier who seems to have a dominance problem?
-How do I get him to stop crying/get used to family members leaving the room?
Thanks in advanced!
Related Cockapoo Training & Care posts:
Being a mutt does not automatically make a dog more prone to health problems, but being the product of irresponsible breeding does. Left to their own devices, mutts produced by free breeding will actually be a lot healthier than your average purebred because natural selection works to weed out individuals with unhealthy, maladaptive genes from the gene pool.
That said, the fact that the dog is a “cockapoo” and that it is 2 weeks too young to leave its mother means it’s almost certainly from a puppy mill and is likely to have all kinds of infectious, parasitic and genetic problems lurking under the hood. Please get it to the vet as soon as possible for a thorough physical exam and full blood panel.
There are a lot of great foods out there and a lot of really crappy ones as well. I recommend doing some research on this site and finding one that suits your needs: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/
Chewing and biting are to be expected, especially with such a young puppy. For now try to make chew toys the more appealing option and don’t give him access to other things when you’re not around to supervise. When he’s a little older you can start on real obedience training and then you’ll have commands like “Stop” to work with.
Keep that Chihuahua mix far away from him. He is only 6 weeks old, he is not going to survive a run-in with your cousin’s aggressive, poorly-trained dog.
And there’s no way you can train him to stop crying. He is a tiny baby, too small to be away from his mother. Spend as much time as you possibly can with him and when you have to be away, try leaving him with something that smells like you (maybe an old sweatshirt). Leaving the radio on might help too.