Getting Ready for Your New Goldendoodle Puppy

So the big day is right around the corner. Any day now you’ll be bringing your new goldendoodle puppy home for the first time. Are you ready? We often get questions from new families on how to prepare for the big day and what our recommendations are to make those first days, weeks or months just a little bit easier. Here are our Top 10 Tips To Prep for a New Goldendoodle Puppy.

Bringing a new puppy home is exciting, but a little preparation can mean a lot less stress and easier transition for you, puppy and everyone involved. During the 8 to 10 weeks of your doodle pup’s life we get them started on basic manners and early traninig. Puppies learn and pick things up very quickly, so a little bit of training can go a long way to getting them off to a good start. By the time they go to your home they have started crate training, potty training, have been expected to sit to be petted or picked up and more. In this post we’ll go over our recommended set up. This is based on what we use in our home for the puppies, but also for new puppies that join our families.

Tip #1 – Crating Your New Goldendoodle Puppy

Crating your new puppy is very important both to potty training, but also for your new puppy’s safety. When you get an 8 week old puppy, it’s like getting a toddler in your home. They need to be watched or kept in a safe place unless they are being overseen. An unsupervisored puppy can chew or eat things that are dangerous or expenisve. Potty training is much harder if they are not contained while they are learning.

We crate our puppies at night, but also for brief periods of an hour or two throughout the day. If they are in the playyard, day time crating is not as essential, but you do want them to look at their crate as their bed and THEIR safe place. You need to close the crate door at night, but during the day if the crate is in a playyard, you can leave it open for them to come and go.

If you are not using a play yard, you can crate your puppy for a few hours at a time. They will need to be taken out to do their business and to run around. This set up works well if you work from home or are home pretty much full time.

Tip #2 – Using a Puppy Play Yard

If you need to leave your puppy at home for stretches longer than a couple hours, or your work outside the home and plan to come home at lunch to let the puppy out, a play yard will give you more flexibility to leave your pup alone for a little longer while still contained. You can put a smaller crate inside the playyard, or just put a good bed in one corner. Their food and water can be out, and you can have some sort of pee pad in the corner or a litter box. We start training our puppies to use a litter box at about 3 weeks old, so they are generally pretty good by the time they go to their new homes. A pet gate where you puppy is contained in a safe area of your home can work too, but be sure there is nothing your puppy can chew on or damage if they get bored while you’re gone.

You also want to be aware of how your goldendoodle puppy is growing and changing as some learn to jump out of the crate at an earlier age than others which means you either need to try to train them not to jump out, or move on to new methods.

Tip #3 – Chew Toys and More

Your puppy will sleep a lot, so they don’t need to be constantly entertained while in their crate or play yard, but having some good chew toys or meaty bones can give them something to do to keep them busy. We do not recommend cow raw hides as they are not digestible and can cause intestinal blockages, but pig raw hides are fine. Filled cow hooves are a favorite — anything that will take a little time to work through. Just be sure to mix it up every so often..

Tip #4 – Should You Use Puppy Pee Pads, a Litter Box or Astro Turf?

If you plan to contain your puppy using either a pet gate or a puppy play yard, having a potty area can help keep things clean in between outdoor potty times. Puppy pads are great –as long as the puppies don’t chew them. The plastic isn’t good for their tummies. We use a litter pan or box with pine pellet type litter or pelletized horse bedding. There are different types of litter boxes, but your want something with a little depth and that is durable and not too expensive as puppies sometimes will chew it up a little if they’re bored. For older puppies, we like the smaller/medium mortar mixing tubs from Home Depot. Of course this should not take the place of taking your dog outside regularly so they get to doing their business in their outside potty area, but if you have to leave them for 3-5 hours or if it’s a rainy, cold day when it’s hard to take them out, having a potty area will keep their area cleaner.

Astro Turf or artificial grass is another option. We’ve had some families use astro turf on their patio, especially those who live in apartments. You probably don’t want to use this for a large, full grown dog, but with a puppy, you often need to get them out quick in the mornings, so having a potty area close by is helpful. Just be sure to either get the cheaper variety from Home Depot that that you can cut into smaller pieces and throw out when it’s soiled, or have a way to keep it clean so it doesn’t breed bacteria or get too smelly.

Tip #5 — Introducing your Puppy to Young Children or Older Pets

The playyard option, a gated area or just plain old crating is really important if you are bringing your new goldendoodle puppy into a home with smaller children or older pets. Puppies are very playful, but they have sharp little teeth and need to learn to respect your child or older pet’s space. So do go slow and do introduce them, but don’t give your new puppy run of the house too soon. Take it slow and keep an eye on how interactions are going and be aware if a break is needed either for the puppy or the child or older pet.

Tip #6 — Constant supervision

Puppies, even those that don’t LOOK like puppies anymore, which to us means a puppy that is under one year of age, can’t be trusted on their own. They are teething, exploring and curious about the world around them. We recommend you keep your goldendoodle puppy contantly supervised until they are a year old. With our dogs, we keep them crated at night or when we are not at home until they are a year old and then we see how they do and ease up gradually.

Tip #7 – Start an Online Training Course

We like to start our puppies on early training exercises and get them used to simple commands like, “Watch me” or “Look”, “Leave it” etc., but, as you will soon discover, puppies learn in stages and it’s a process. One day they’ll be doing so good on the training your giving them. and the next they go through a new stage and seem to have forgotten everything they learn. Be patient. Your efforts to train your puppy will pay off if you stay consistent and keep at it. We recommend starting your new goldendoodle puppy on their training right away. If they have not had all three of their puppy shots yet, they are not ready to attend classes with other dogs, but you can still start their training by using an online training course such as the one month Pupford Course by Zak George, or The Baxter and Bella Training Course. The Pupford Course is free, Baxter and Bella offer a lifetime membership for a reasonable price. You can use our Rainfield Coupon of RAINFIELD25 to get 25% off the Baxter and Bella dog training course. What we like about the Baxter and Bella option is that if you run into a particular problem, say, your puppy is excitement peeing, or resource guarding, etc, you can do a Zoom call with the B&B team and they can see what your puppy is doing, how you are handling it and give you specific instruction on how to deal with that issue.

One your puppy is old enough, you also have the option of taking them out to an outside training course with other dogs, but just make sure you have the go-ahead from your vet.

Tip # 8 Use a Dog Crate Cover

Wire dog crates are our personal favorite. They are light weight, yet sturdy and look pretty good alongside other furniture. If you notice that your puppy is doing a lot of barking though when they see you or other pets or children going about your daily activities and you’re not in a position to let them out right then, go ahead an cover up the crate and it should help them to calm and quiet down.

The same goes for night time. We recommend having your goldendoodle puppy’s crate somewhere quiet and dark, maybe the laundry room or your bedroom, but if they have trouble settling down for the night, go ahead an cover up their crate and make sure it’s dark. We like to put on some night sounds or white noise on our Alexa or Google Home at night.

Tip #9 – Using a Dog Cot

Dog cots are a lightweight, mesh type raised platform that keeps your goldendoodle puppy off the ground. Our dogs love theirs and we go through several of them a year once they wear out. Dog cots are low cost, but pretty durable for the amount of use they get. We love our dog cot for teaching our goldendoodle puppies the “place” and “stay” commands.

Tip #10 Hands Free Leashes for Tethering

One way we have found to intergrate our older puppies into our home life while still keeping them supervised is to use a hands free dog leash or a tethering leash. A hands free tethering dog leash fastens around your waist and limits how far the puppy can go allowing you to keep a close eye on them, but frees up your hands so you can cook, do laundry, etc. If they are tethered to you, you are more likely to notice when they do something they shouldn’t, such as chew on the furniture, and can correct and train them on the spot.

Want to know if we have a goldendoodle puppy available?

If you’d like to know if we have a Rainfield goldendoodle puppy available, contacts us at laurie@rainfieldgoldendoodles.com or by phone or text at 281-235-3272. You can also click here to find out How to Get a Goldendoodle Puppy, including current pricing, .