Two things decide whether the next fifteen years are pleasant, and neither of them is sit. Here is what to do in the first months.
Everything in the first week is about the puppy learning that this new place is safe and predictable. Not obedience. Not tricks.
Keep it quiet. Resist the urge to invite the whole extended family round to meet the new puppy on day two — it is overwhelming, and there is time. Set the routine you actually intend to keep: where it sleeps, where it eats, where it toilets. Puppies learn patterns much faster than commands.
Expect broken nights for the first few. A puppy that has just left its mother and littermates is genuinely distressed to be alone, and that is normal rather than a training failure.
Out after every sleep, every meal, every play session — every hour or two at first. Reward the instant it goes in the right place, not once you are back inside; two seconds late and the puppy has no idea what you are pleased about.
Never punish an accident indoors. It does not teach the puppy to go outside. It teaches the puppy to go where you cannot see it. Clean it with an enzyme cleaner rather than a phenyl-based one, which can smell like a marking spot to a dog.
Four to eight weeks of consistency is normal. Until the vaccination course is finished, use a pad or a private terrace rather than a public lawn.
This is the one nobody does and everybody regrets. These breeds — Goldendoodles especially — bond hard and are prone to separation anxiety.
From the first week, while you are still at home, leave the puppy alone in another room for two minutes. Then five. Then twenty. Come back before it panics, not after, and make no fuss on either side. A puppy that has never been alone until the day everyone goes back to work is a puppy that will scream and destroy things.
The window that shapes a dog's adult confidence closes at around sixteen weeks — which is almost exactly when the vaccination course finishes. That is the problem.
The answer is not to wait. It is to socialise without putting the puppy on shared ground. Carry it to the gate and let it watch traffic. Carry it into the lift. Have visitors come to your home. Run the pressure cooker, the mixer, the doorbell. Let it meet vaccinated adult dogs you know, indoors.
What the puppy calmly experiences before sixteen weeks it will generally accept for life. What it never meets can become frightening later.
Poodles are not stubborn. They are sensitive, and the difference matters enormously in how you handle them.
Harsh handling shuts a Poodle down rather than motivating it. Food, praise and play work faster and do not cost you the relationship.
Five minutes, three times a day, beats one long session. These dogs learn quickly and get bored just as quickly.
If jumping up is sometimes fine, the dog will keep testing. Clever dogs find every inconsistency in a household.
Puzzle feeders, hidden food, learning the names of toys. Ten minutes of this is worth half an hour of walking.
Choke chains and prong collars on a sensitive breed produce fear, not obedience. Any trainer who suggests them is the wrong trainer.
The habits you tolerate in a 4kg Toy Poodle are the ones you would train out of a 25kg dog. Do it anyway.
Very. Poodles are consistently ranked among the two or three most trainable breeds in the world, and Goldendoodles inherit a good deal of that. The catch is that they learn what you did not intend just as fast — that whining opens doors, that barking gets attention, that you give in on the third try.
Toilet training and settling alone, in that order, from day one. Sit and paw are easy and can wait. The two things that actually determine whether the next fifteen years are pleasant are whether the dog toilets where you want and whether it can be left without panicking.
Take the puppy out — or to its pad — after every sleep, every meal and every play session, which in practice means every hour or two at first. Reward outside immediately, within two seconds. Never punish an accident indoors; it teaches the puppy to hide from you rather than to wait. Expect four to eight weeks of consistency.
It is a real risk with this breed, more than most, precisely because they bond so hard. Prevent it rather than treat it: from week one, leave the puppy alone for short periods every day while you are still at home. Two minutes, then five, then twenty. A puppy that has never been alone until you go back to the office will not cope.
We recommend it, used properly. A crate is a bed the dog chooses, not a punishment — fed in, never shut in as discipline, door open most of the time. It makes toilet training faster, gives the dog somewhere to retreat when the house is busy, and makes travel and vet stays far less frightening later.
Toy Poodles more than the other two, and it is very trainable but it needs training rather than tolerating. Standard Poodles are generally quiet. Goldendoodles bark to greet rather than to warn. In all three, most excessive barking is boredom.
Group puppy classes are worth it, mainly for the socialisation around other dogs and people. For a one-to-one trainer, insist on reward-based methods. Poodles in particular shut down under harsh correction, and a trainer who uses choke chains or prong collars will do lasting damage to a sensitive dog.
Ten to fifteen minutes of something that makes it think — training, a puzzle feeder, food hidden around a room. This is not optional with these breeds. A dog that is physically tired but mentally bored still chews your furniture.