12 Week Old Cockapoo (Everything You Need To Know)

One month into bringing home your precious new addition, you don’t notice they’re changing until you wake up one morning, and it looks like they’ve doubled in size! It’s easy not to notice the day-to-day changes, but puppies can almost seem like they sprout up overnight, and you wake up the next day living with an entirely different dog.

The first few weeks are about getting to know your little fluff and helping them settle in. It’s a big change to go through where everything they know is stripped away. They go from sleeping with their mum and siblings every night to being expected to settle in their bed, sometimes alone, sometimes in a different room altogether!

Four weeks of settling, and you should know each other pretty well by now. Here’s what to expect from your 12-week-old Cockapoo.

What Size is a Cockapoo at 12 Weeks?

After 4 weeks at home, you can expect your new addition to gain an inch or two in height, it might not look like much, but they tend to grow up before they fill out, so you should notice their legs getting longer for the most part.

You bring them home in those first four weeks; your little fluffball can put on another 30% of their body weight! Cockapoos come in quite a wide range of sizes just because there are a variety of poodle sizes that can be used in their breeding. For this reason, it’s almost impossible to give a standard figure, but you can expect about a 30% body weight gain.

If your pup was 3kg when you bring them home, they could put on an additional 0.9kg in those first few weeks, which doesn’t sound like much but will make all the difference as your little tearaway finds their feet and gains that extra bit of height to hone in their cheeky thieving skills!

How Much Food Should my 12 Week Old Cockapoo Eat?

A Cockapoo puppy should still eat three times daily to support their growth. As their growth rate accelerates, they need all the protein and calcium from a puppy-specific diet to help their bones grow nice and strong.

Most diets will require some idea of the size your puppy is supposed to grow up to be. An adult Cockapoo can be anywhere between 6 to 11kg. For a Cockapoo who is expected to grow to 6kg on a Royal Canin Puppy diet, at 12 weeks, they would need 116g of feed split into three meals. If they’re expected to reach 10kg, they would need 170g throughout the day. There is a big difference in feeding amounts depending on the size you expect your puppy to grow.

The best way to predict this is through the parents, and the breeder may be able to give you an idea based on previous litters if they’ve bred the same pair before. As they get bigger, their food intake will need to increase too.

How Much Should a 12 Week Old Cockapoo Sleep?

Twelve weeks is when you should expect your puppy to become a little more active. Up until 3 months of age, they will sleep up to 20 hours out of the day, so they have energy for the short 4 hours they’re awake. Those hours tend to be broken up into short bursts of energy rather than being in one long stint.

At twelve weeks, your Cockapoo puppy will be able to stay up a little longer, just an extra two hours or so throughout the day, but it’s a noticeable change as it means they’re awake for 50% more time than they were when you first brought them home. It gives you extra time to bond, play and train!

What do 12 Week Old Puppies do All Day?

Being a 12 week old baby is hard work; they have to divide their time between sleeping, eating, going to the toilet and playtime! At 12 weeks old, you’ll start to see and get to know their personality a little bit more. They will develop their preferences as you explore and play with them throughout the day.

Some Cockapoos like to “kill” their stuffed animals, while others prefer to chase a ball. Some get addicted to that sweet squeaking noise their toys make and will learn that following you around while incessantly squeaking gets them a fun reaction.

12 weeks is the time they start to explore and develop experiences. They start to understand the world around them while they hopefully also start to understand right from wrong, like where it isn’t ok to go to the toilet!

Walking your 12 Week Old Cockapoo

At 12 weeks old, you might notice that the harness and collar you initially bought your puppy start to look a little tight, and you may have to adjust it or buy some bigger ones for them. At 12 weeks old they should be fully vaccinated and ready to start exploring the world.

Hopefully, before this time, you’ve been taking them on walks by just carrying them around the outside world to get used to lots of sights and sounds.

Between 4 and 12 weeks, puppies go through what is called a specialisation period. It’s a time when their brains are developing, and they can absorb and process new experiences. During this time, they learn what is normal for them, and after the 12-week mark, they may start to approach things a little more cautiously if they’re not used to it.

The important thing is not to put pressure on your pup. They’re still just a baby and exploring the world can be intimidating, so keep walks short and positive to ensure they’re an enjoyable experience.

Training a 12 Week old Cockapoo

At 12 weeks old, your Cockapoo puppy can take in more information than it could when you first brought them home. Over the first few weeks, they should get lots of toilet breaks and treats for going outside. Any accidents inside should be ignored and cleaned up as soon as your puppy forgets about them.

There’s no need to reprimand undesired behaviour; with puppies as friendly and attention seeing as Cockapoos, you risk them learning that going to the toilet in the house gets them attention. For these babies, all attention is good attention, so even when you think you’re telling them off, they could still be having the best time.

Unwanted behaviour should be ignored while you make a big fuss about anything they do that’s good. While my little one was growing, I had little stashes of treats all over the house to catch and reward any good behaviour.

At 12 weeks, you can start teaching them a few things like sit and down. Around this age is an excellent time to start thinking of taking them to accredited training classes, but you can always get a little head start at home!