We’re getting a puppy!!!!!...how to find your special oodle

By lovingpeacefulmama

We are so excited!!!  We are finally getting ourselves a puppy!!!!  We’ve been waiting for so long.  It’s been years.   We’ve been through killing dozens of goldfish (couldn’t get the water chemistry right), a hamster(honest he died of old age), 2 silly-strange popcorning guinea pigs (Olivia and Lucy are still alive I swear), and now, finally we are getting a puppy.  I’ve only know the process of adoption through animal shelters, but this time we’ve had to consider my allergies.
If you don’t have children and/or you have no allergies, I urge you to go to an amimal shelter and Rescue Groups to search for a pet.  There are so many loving and good behaving older dogs that have been placed in a shelter because the owners either couldn’t afford them or couldn’t physically take care of them…and they are so much cheaper than a poodle mixture from a breeder.
We decided to make our lives a whole lot easier and look for and pay for a dog that would not shed and or have dander that would make me sneeze and generally make my life more miserable (Lucy and Olivia make me sneeze).
To start with, we looked through the many different poodle breads (designer dogs) that have been created for people with allergies like me.  Like lab-a doodle, cockapoo, ( the Bich-poo - (Bichon Frise / Poodle mix) and Poo-Shi - (Shiba Inu / Poodle mix) are my daughters favorite names)  I’ve attached a link to the silly (but true) poodle breed names: http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/poodlemix.htm.   
Keep in mind however, if you mix a Poodle with a dog that does shed the Poodle mixes may shed, if it inherited the shedding trait from the non-Poodle parent. 
We went online to try and find a poodle breed that was right for us.  My tween daughter asked her friends and looked online and compared which dogs would be the best fit for our family.  I was up for a sheep dog (I know it’s not an oodle but I’ve always wanted a sheep dog), she wanted a Rattle (rat terrier poodle mix).  After many hours online, and many conversations of what we really wanted.  We found out that a cockapoo can cost more than $2k!!!!  What a wake up call.
Is the breeder legitimate?
You must find out if your breeder is legitimate.  Is this online breeder a scam or a real breeder?  It’s recommended that you visit the breeder if you can.  Because $2k is a whole lotta of money.   We started with oodle marketplace at oodle.com.  After a few inquires and sorting through the listings, we emailed a few breeders.  Oodle put one of the breeders that we were in contact with on notice and deactivated them and let us know by email.  Breeders as far as Florida are online, scams are everywhere. 
You can also check with a breeder list at: https://www.breederinfocenter.com/
And https://www.apps.akc.org/apps/breederinfo/breeder_search.cfm
Beware the puppy mills:
Another worry is puppy mills.  If you find a place that offers puppies at a discounted rate, chances are you are in contact with a puppy mill. At first I thought it would be good if we adopted a pet from a puppy mill because we would be saving a puppy from a terrible place, from a terrible fate.  But when I heard about how sick the puppies are because of how badly they were treated, the puppies may not live long and may have terribly large vet bills because of the terrible health they come with.  You are also financing these puppy mills if you buy from them, so you are basically helping them stay in business.  It’s especially bad if you’re adopting this puppy for a child and expect it to be able to interact with your child when unfortunately it probably hasn’t socialized with people at all which gives you a very stressful situation for your family and the puppy.
If you can find someone that has already adopted a similar pet ask them for the breeders name and number and go from there.  We were really lucky, a family friend adopted a cockapoo from a family in Florida and she passed along the name to us.  Cathy’s Cockapoos is located in Florida http://www.cathyscockapoos.com.
Adoption Tip:
Make sure you talk with your breeder on the phone, if they actually do exist you can get a feeling on whether or not you get a good feeling from them and whether or not you can work with them. 
Cathy who was very nice and very straight forward with all of the adoption information, told us that we were in luck and that there were going to be 2 litters that were going to be delivered in the next few weeks.  These puppies were to live with her family and they would interact with the puppies until it was safe enough for them to be weaned off of the mother.
Cathy sent some photos of the new born puppies and we chose “Oreo” right off the spot…yes we’ve already named her.  We fell in love with her just as soon as we seen her.  The only thing that held us back was the price.  I’ve never paid for a dog that cost so much.  But looking at Oreo, just melted our hearts.
Since Oreo is in Florida and we are in New England, Cathy told us that the puppy would be flown with an airline that she was familiar with.  She will be delivered to our home in the end of September and we can’t wait. 
Stay tuned for more puppy news!

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