Inflation has been rampant for the past five years in the UK. Houses, hotels, butter, cappuccinos – all are more expensive.

But one thing has fallen in value: dogs. In particular, the cocker spaniel-poodle cross-breed, the cockapoo.

In 2020, when Britain was plunged into the first Covid lockdown, the average price of all dogs was £2,089, with cockapoos fetching £2,644. That’s according to Pets4Homes, the largest website for potential owners.

Now? The average cost of a dog is £1,132 and cockapoos are a mere £962. Why? Could potential cockapoo owners have realised this variety of dog, touted as a family-friendly bundle of cuteness, is not all it’s cracked up to be? That unscrupulous breeders could sell them, well, a pup?

Action Fraud, the national centre for reporting crime, says that between 2020 and 2024 there were 14,000 ‘pet fraud’ crimes reported. This includes people being duped into buying a dog that isn’t what they thought it would be. Due to their high premiums, fake ‘cockapoos’ can be a particularly easy target for immoral puppy farmers.

OK, I should admit – I own a cockapoo. Worse, I am one of the many thousands of Brits bullied by their children during lockdown to buy the breed.

We spent £2,000 on our puppy from an amateur breeder we found on Pets4Homes. The children, then aged eight to 17, adored her and called her Darcey. But the novelty soon wore off. Who was left with responsibility for her? Need you ask?

We bought our dog from a woman in Essex. We visited her home and the dogs seemed happy.

Harry Wallop bought Darcey the cockapoo for £2,000 in lockdown

But, while we had a good experience, others have not. Author Charlotte Fallowfield, 55, spent £800 on her ‘cockapoo’ Waffle in September 2019, also via Pets4Homes. She went to the breeder and sensed something wrong – the breeder was very reluctant to show Charlotte the dog’s mother.

‘They basically went out to a yard and dragged a black dog out. He looked terrified, absolutely petrified,’ she recalls.

‘I just thought, I don’t want to leave him in that environment.’

She took the puppy home, but when it grew into a 23kg hound – rather than the 10kg cockapoo she was expecting – she decided to get him DNA-tested. It turns out Waffle was nearer to being a sproodle – a springer/poodle mix – and large enough to knock Charlotte over.

Charlotte used a firm called Wisdom Panel to test Waffle’s DNA. So, I decided, to test Darcey, too. For £74.99, you get sent two swabs to rub in the dog’s mouth. You send them to Wisdom’s laboratory. A few weeks later, the results are emailed to you.

But why did Charlotte, I and thousands of others end up risking fraudulent dog breeders and hefty prices in pursuit of – above all else – a cockapoo? How did they become such a wonder dog?

The origin of all ‘doodle dogs’ – the term for any dog created with 50 per cent poodle genes – was in 1988, when Australian breeder Wally Conron decided to create a guide dog that wouldn’t make its owner’s allergies flare up. While most people thought his resulting Labrador/poodle cross (now called a ‘Labradoodle’) was just a mutt, as soon as doodle dogs were given a cutesy name, they started to become popular.

In 2019, there were an estimated 326,000 cockapoos in the UK, according to VetCompass, run by the Royal Veterinary College (RVC). This put the cockapoo eighth in popularity. Labradors were number one with 689,000.

Harry and his family visited the breeder's home that Darcey was from and the dogs seemed very happy 

By 2023, Labradors held on to the number one slot with 749,000. Yet, cockapoos had more than doubled in number to 653,000, becoming Britain’s second most popular dog.

The main reason why many people buy a cockapoo is because they, like all doodle dogs, do not shed fur and are supposedly non-allergenic. I have two sisters-in-law, both of whom are so allergic to animals they start sneezing merely by watching All Creatures Great And Small.

A cockapoo would solve this issue, we thought. Not so.

‘Cockapoos were originally marketed as hypo-allergenic and that’s stayed in the zeitgeist,’ says Dr Dan O’Neill, 60, associate professor at the RVC. ‘They may be less allergenic, but they are certainly not non-allergenic.’

The other reason for cockapoos’ popularity is, simply, their appearance. ‘They look like a toy in Hamleys but are a real dog to live with, which fulfils many people’s desire to own a cute dog,’ says Louise Glazebrook, dog behaviourist and author of The Book Your Dog Wishes You Would Read.

Darcey cost ‘only’ £2,000 because she was black – a surprisingly unpopular colour. Most cockapoo owners want them teddy-bear brown. Their resemblance to a stuffed toy is key to their success, as Dr O’Neill explains. ‘They’re sold as being cute, cuddly and perfect with children – the ideal family pet.’

But, as many owners have discovered, cockapoos are not particularly well-behaved.

Sophie Tothill, 26, a teacher, bought her cockapoo Alfie in 2022 from Pets4Homes. ‘When we first got him, he was quite naughty. We had chewed-up furniture.

Darcey cost ‘only’ £2,000 because she was black – a surprisingly unpopular colour. Most cockapoo owners want them teddy-bear brown

‘He’s taken chunks out of skirting boards.’

Despite the chewing, Sophie adores Alfie and set up an Instagram account in his name, which now has almost 2,000 followers.

Darcey had a penchant for expensive cashmere – destroying hundreds of pounds worth of jumpers.

But the most common behavioural problem with cockapoos is that they can be frantic – aggressively barking and jumping. Glazebrook says this can be down to poor breeding, with disreputable puppy farms churning out dogs purely on their looks.

During the pandemic when cockapoo ownership boomed, she says some, like Charlotte, were tricked into buying dogs that were not what they purported to be.

‘I have a client who thought she was buying a cockapoo and it turned out to be a Patterdale terrier,’ Glazebrook recalls. ‘They were extremely upset and eventually rehomed the dog as they could not supply what the Patterdale needed.’

Charlotte’s Waffle also needed more care than she was expecting because he had such a poor start in life. He is allergic to grass, can eat only pure beef or pork, and is frequently ill – costing her an insurance claim of £14,000 in just six months. Even so, Charlotte still finds him ‘adorable’.

As for Darcey’s results, it turns out she is almost a perfect cockapoo – 52 per cent poodle and 43 per cent English cocker spaniel.

But, Darcey’s not that special. And neither are any of the other cockapoos in Britain’s parks. And, it would seem from their plummeting prices, many people have woken up to that fact.