Please make sure you scroll all the way down the page. There are some links to excellent articles on common problems faced by new puppy owners.  Also click the logo to enter the Doodle Country Store where you can purchase lots of fun and also useful items for your Labradoodle puppy or grown up Doodle. 

The first thing we need to understand is that  canines live and hunt in packs, which  have a definite ingrained social structure.  From birth,  much instinctive jostling and body language goes on as each puppy learns its place in the hierachy of the litter.  When feeding switches from suckling the mother, to sharing (or not) the prey, a lot of biting, nipping, and snarling happens as the young dogs extend their experimentation and learning processes to the 'pack'.  The puppy who was 'top dog' in its litter could well be in for some surprises ! 

The puppies no sooner have things all worked out, than they are plucked from their familiar social structure and placed into a new 'pack' which is you and your family.

Read About Pack Order

Establishing Pack Order

This is why it is natural for all puppies to nip and bite, and even growl or snap as they continue with the behaviors which taught them their place in their first  pack  - their siblings. Your new puppy is looking to you for guidance the only way it knows how.  Young children should always be supervised around puppies not only for their own sake but for the puppy's as well!                                                                                                                                                                               Alec's Guinnes with supervised children  Suggested reading is  'The Art of Raising a Puppy'  by the Monks of New Skete as an excellent starting place.  Gather your information from a few sources and do what works for you and your dog.

There is no substitution for early training, which should commence from

DAY ONE. THE BIG ISSUE -

Potty Training !!

How quickly your puppy becomes 'clean' indoors depends entirely on how vigilant YOU are. Prevention is far better than cure. DO NOT LET A NEW PUPPY HAVE THE RUN OF THE HOUSE .  Restrict the area your puppy has to run around in indoors.  When you are too busy to supervise, pop the puppy into a portable play run until you are ready to watch over him again.  Some newspaper in one corner will help out if the puppy gets 'caught short'. Ring The Bells ! A popular way to teach a puppy to signal when it needs to go outside (or older dogs too) is to have it ring the bells.  They catch on fast and love it. Until recently it's been difficult to find bells which are strong, and won't break if nipped with  sharp young teeth.  But now at last, there are  POOCHIE BELLS made especially for the purpose.  They are stylish, strong and  workmanlike, come with fashionable hangers if needed and complement any decor.                                                                                Peuter Flower Hanger   Cute Puppy Hangers     For All Your Doodley Doggie Needs Although we do recommend crating to help with potty training we believe it is cruel to confine a puppy (or a grown dog) to a crate all day whilst a family is away.  It is bound to make your puppy  hyper active and full of nervous energy when finally let out.   Training will be difficult and  unwanted behaviors will result.  Whether to crate or not is an entirely personal choice. If you crate your puppy, overnight, or when you are not able to supervise it inside your home, you will minimize toilet 'accidents' and so will speed up the house training process. If you choose not to crate, then it is a good idea to restrict the puppy's access to any but one room at a time - the room you are in, so that you can pick up on puppy's telltale sniffing at the floor when it wants to go outside. Quickly scoop up the puppy, and CARRY it to your chosen spot in the yard, where it will soon become a habit for puppy to consider its toilet place. One room is all you can properly supervise. Teaching Puppy to use a particular spot outside for Toileting Put some of puppy's droppings in a particular part of your yard, and you can train your puppy to use the same place every time for doing its toilet. CARRY  your puppy straight outside to this spot every time and it will soon become habit. If puppy is peeing inside, after being left outside for awhile, then it hasn't been out long enough. Just increase the time. DON'T PLAY WITH PUPPY during toilet trips. Praise and treat when puppy relieves itself outside, and then bring it back in again. Do NOT rub its nose in it's mistake. Very young puppies need to go potty  about every hour, and at some other predictable times such as after waking up from a sleep, after eating or drinking, after anything exciting....and then some! If your puppy is sniffing the ground, walking in circles, seems a little unsettled, and you are not sure if it wants to go potty or not, this is our advice to you... When in doubt....... OUT !! Re Submissive Peeing   Why Do Dogs Get into Mischief? Dogs are very social animals that make wonderful pets. However, with the lifestyle and schedule of a lot of families these days, dogs need to learn to spend lots of time at home alone. Too much freedom too soon is the major reason that puppies get into trouble. A puppy that is left unsupervised to wander about, investigate and destroy things will have a difficult time learning how to behave properly in your home and also be more difficult to potty train. Isabel's 'Sydney' in her crate in Japan Karina used this spacious play pen to confine Holly and Colby in Melbourne Australia And Laura's Luna was kept out of mischief in her play pen in California Crates are intended to be transitional for most dogs, although some dogs love their crate for life. When properly crate trained, dogs spend their time resting and/or sleeping in the crate.  the pictures above show the ways that can be used to partition off certain parts of the house to restrict play areas when your puppy is not being supervised. How Much Exercise? Young puppies under twelve months of age should not have 'forced' exercise, such as jogging for miles, or very long walks on the leash. The mechanical movement of enforced exercise at the same pace is not natural to a puppy, which will frequently change from gallop, to trot, to walk, and flop down from time to time when given the opportunity. The mechanical dynamic of a puppy being forced to maintain the same pace on a leash before it is fully developed can cause damage to loose ligaments and immature joints, especially in heavier breeds of dog. Free exercise, where the puppy can change from walk, to romp to trot, are fine, as well as shorter periods on leash, for training etc. Hip Dysplasia (HD) is one joint disease which can be induced by improper exercise.  Maximum on-leash exercise:- FROM 10 wks to four months old: Twenty minutes on leash once daily, plus romping at free will. FROM four months to eight months: Up to an hour daily as long as some free time is interspersed with the on leash. Eight months to twelve months: .A full hour on leash once or twice daily plus romping. No jumping off high places, no Frisbee, or agility until after twelve months of age.   Stairs Danger!!! Slippery Polished Floors...Danger !!! Running up and down stairs, jumping off high places, and slipping and sliding about on polished floors, or tiled surfaces, can cause irreparable damage to young forming joints as can keeping a puppy behind a high door, with say, a peephole that encourages the dog to stand on its hind legs for hours at a time to see over or through the gate. Dogs are a four legged creature which are not conformed physically to spending a lot of time on just two of their legs. Failure to observe these things can induce HD (Hip Dysplacia)  and other joint problems even in a healthy puppy.                                                            Vivienne's hubby made this great little ramp so that Miki wouldn't have to climb up and down the puppy - dangerous stairs. CAUTION: Common activities that can be detrimental in the development of young dogs includes: running up and down stairs, jumping off high places, and slipping and sliding about on polished floors, or tiled surfaces. Extended running periods in deep sand and so on, can cause irreparable damage to young forming joints as can keeping a dog behind a high door, with say, a peephole that encourages the dog to stand on its hind legs for hours at a time to see over or through the gate. Dogs are a four legged creature which are not conformed physically to spending a lot of time on just two of their legs. Next to What You will need

Some Tips to get you Started

• Young puppies like young babies need their rest. This is of utmost importance for healthy growing and development of both physical and mental faculties. Many a potentially good and stable puppy of any breed has been ruined in a puppy which has been deprived of adequate sleep time or has been forced to defend itself from persistent children who do not understand that puppy is a baby, not a toy.

Make sure puppy has a special place all its own where the children do not follow, so it can seek rest when needed, away from its human playmates. [We highly recommend a house crate] Our recipe is one hour of play and two hours of rest time for the first month.

CAUTION
Dogs are quadrupeds, not bipeds.  Running up and down stairs, jumping off high places, and slipping and sliding about on polished floors, or tiled surfaces, can cause irreparable damage to young forming joints. As can keeping a dog behind a high door, with say, a peephole that encourages the dog to stand on its hind legs for hours at a time to see over or through the gate. Dogs are not conformed physically to spending a lot of time on just two of their legs.

The more intelligent the dog, the greater is the need for early training.  Add intuition and you have a puppy who will outsmart you while you're still wondering what you want him to do. 

START TRAINING FROM DAY ONE  or you may find that your cute adorable puppy becomes an attention seeking, naughty brat child completely out of control.  We recommend that if you have not trained a puppy before, that you enlist the help of a good trainer within the first week  you have your new puppy.  Prevention is so much easier (and cheaper) than cure!

Australian Labradoodles are wonderful children's dogs.  But it is important that children be taught to respect the puppy and to handle it gently. 

The Truth About The Slip Chain Collar - Is it Cruel?

This wonderful, kind, effective training collar has through no fault of its own, gotten itself a bad name, I personally believe, because of the HORRIBLE  name its inventors gave it - 'choke chain' or 'choker chain.'   WHO would want to choke their dog?  Certainly not me!!   And yet I have used this collar to train the smallest puppies to the largest adult dogs for more than forty years and I personally believe it to be the very best training collar there is.  But it must be used correctly - just like any other piece of equipment.  I refuse to call it a 'choker' and gave it the name 'slip chain collar' many years ago.

There is so much absolute twaddle on the internet and other places, about the slip chain collar that it is little wonder so many people (including many trainers) are either afraid to use it, or refuse to use it due to lack of understanding.  

Interestingly, the prong collar was once called the 'pinch collar' (and is illegal in Australia).  In America it is on sale in every pet store, but I wonder how many pet owners would buy it if it still had it's horrible first name PINCH collar? Imagine being 'pinched' around your own throat! 

When we are demonstrating the slip chain collar, we will often put it around our own necks or wrists and invite someone to give it a few good jerks.  It's soon seen that it doesn't hurt, and isn't uncomfortable even when tugged on much harder than we would ever need to do with a young puppy!

<<<This is the Slip Chain Collar as you see it hanging up in the store.  A stainless steel series of links with a ring on each end.  It is designed to sit loosely around the dog's neck. When a gentle tug is given to the leash, the links run through the ring and make a metallic noise which the dog hears close behind its ears.   The noise it makes has the same affect as a clicker and gains the dog's attention.  It isn't necessary to JERK the leash, a gentle tug followed by a quick release sends a clear message to the dog when it pulls or dives away from the handler.  When the dog looks at the handler, as it will, it is praised. It is a TRAINING collar and should not be left on the dog as a regular collar when not being trained.  If it is left on the dog  full time,  then it COULD damage the dog's throat or even choke it, if caught on something when no one was around. One of the great advantages of the slip chain collar is its safety.   It  will not so easily slip accidentally over the dog's head, allowing him/her to escape off the leash in busy places. There are two ways to put on a slip chain collar - the RIGHT way and the WRONG way.

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