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Bringing Your Puppy Home

Bringing your new puppy home for the first time is an exciting event for both your family and your puppy. While exciting, it is important to know the transition for your new puppy can be very overwhelming. Your puppy will be experiencing  a whole new world of smells, people and sounds. To help with this transition for both your family and your new Goldendoodle, it’s important to prepared.   
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Preparing Your Home
It is important to prepare your home before bringing home a puppy. There are several things you will need to do in order to make your home and yard safe.  
  • ​Puppies like to chew on things. Be sure to put away items that your puppy could swallow or choke on. 
  • Move all electrical cords off the floor or out of reach.
  • Examine your fence to make sure there are no places where your puppy could escape. Sometimes the space between the gate and ground can be big enough for your puppy to wiggle underneath.  
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Shopping List 
Your Goldendoodles Forever® puppy will come home with a Snuggle Puppy that has been scented with mom and littermates, a small bone we have used in crate exposure, a small bag of dog food, and a folder with training information, food and exercise guides, and vet records. However, there are several other items you will need to purchase before bringing your Goldendoole home. Below are some of the must-haves. See my New Puppy Shopping List for my personal favorites.
  • Dog bowls
  • Dog food
  • Dog bed
  • Dog crate (we recommend starting with a crate that will be large enough when your pup is full grown but comes with a moveable divider for when he or she first comes home)
  • Pick-up bags and dispensers
  • Collar and leash 
  • ID tag
  • Dog brush
  • Dog treats
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Preparing Your Family
It's important to prepare all of your family members before bringing your goldendoodle home. Make sure everyone knows the rules that your puppy will be expected to follow, and how to properly train your puppy. Doing this ahead of time will help you create a structured and consistent environment for both your family and puppy. Some examples of rules to set for children include:
  • Small children should not pick up your puppy and carry him or her around. Allowing your children to hold the puppy while sitting is okay, but puppies like to squirm (and jump out of your arms) and it's possible to accidentally injure the puppy while trying to carry it around.
  • Puppies should not be unattended on couches, chairs, and beds. They will jump off and potentially break a leg.
  • Puppies need to feel that they can eat in peace without having to defend their food, making it important that children know to leave your new puppy alone while eating. Children bothering your puppy during a meal could lead to defensive behavior.
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First Night
There are a few things you can do to try and make your puppy's first night a great one:
  • Have a good play session with your puppy, prior to bedtime. Your puppy may be tired already as there have been lots of changes to its environment. However, a short little play session before bed never hurts.   
  • Two hours before bedtime, take away your puppies water so he or she will not have to get up to go to the bathroom during the night. Puppies should have access to water all day until this time.
  • Your puppy will most likely whimper and cry the first few nights. This is normal. Follow the guide provided here and your puppy will be happily crate trained in no time. For night-time crate training, listen to the video I post on your Marco Polo litter group.
  • Does the vet provide the flea and tick medication (for a fee of course) or do we purchase it ourselves?
    You will get your puppy's from the vet (or online with a prescription from your vet). Do NOT let them give you an oral flea and tick medication - sometimes they give you a free sample for the first puppy visit. If they do, ask for Frontline Gold topical instead of the oral. I recommend Frontline Gold topical for flea and tick and Heartgard for heartworm. The flea and tick is given monthly (I actually stretch it out to every 45 days) and the Heartgard is given every 30 days. The Heartguard is oral and that one is OK. But the oral flea and tick can cause neurological problems and they are essentially ingesting a pesticide. Similarly, vets have been giving an oral medication (Sympirica Trio is one) that is for flea, tick, and heartworm. This is convenient but again, I DO NOT recommend it. To repeat - Frontline Gold topical every 45 days starting at Spring thaw and going until first frost; Heartgard every 30 days year round.
  • How often do you recommend grooming and getting nails trimmed? Does the frequency change as they get older?
    Puppies should have their first grooming as soon as they get their rabies vaccination (so at 16 weeks). This grooming will just be a "puppy cut" where they will get a bath, nail trim, and scissor cut. After that visit, I recommend scheduling dogs every 5-6 weeks if you are not good about brushing at home. Some people go to 7-8 weeks, which is fine but only if you are diligent about brushing so they don't mat between visits.
  • What is a regular bathing schedule that we should anticipate? Do you have recommendations on how to properly bathe a dog?
    I don't bathe our adult dogs between groomings unless they get into something and smell. However, this is a personal choice and they are fine to get a bath no more than every two weeks (so their skin doesn't get dried out).
  • What products do you recommend to clean up accidents (both poop and urine)? Is there a specific process we should follow to clean up accidents?
    I use a spray called Rescue. You can get it at Animal Revival Health (online). I don't have any carpet in my house but I've heard good things about Nature's Miracle for carpet.
  • What kind of dog food do you recommend?
    We use Life's Abundance brand food. You will need to order food for your puppy about a week before pick-up. It does not normally take this long to arrive but to be safe, order early.
  • How much and how often should we feed our puppy?
    The short answer - 1/3 cup 3x a day. You will adjust the amount according to the back of the dogfood bag - it goes by weight. Also, people often get confused by the chart on the back of the bag and think the amount listed is per meal. IT IS NOT. It is the total daily amount and you divide that by the number of meals.
  • What kind of treats do you use for training?
    I use a couple. One is Bil n Jac Little Jac Training treats OR Zukes training bites. If Zukes, and I actually cut them in half or it takes too long for them to eat them and is not as effective during a training session. You can also use pieces of cheese, carrots, cucumbers, etc. as well. I recommend looking up "safe healthy treats for dogs" on the internet. I also have a chart on my Facebook page about this.
  • Should we enroll our puppy in some type of puppy classes? Do they need to continue to be around other dogs when given the opportunity?
    I have a hand-out in your take home folder regarding socialization. Yes, it is important for your puppy to get out and about but it should be done with caution until they get their rabies vaccination. If your puppy is visiting other dogs, make sure the dogs they are visiting are fully vaccinated. I absolutely do NOT recommend taking your puppy to a dog park or other highly populated dog location until they are fully vaccinated. Regarding training, if you have done our training program, you'll want to continue what I've been working on to polish the skills. I've only laid the foundation. I always recommend continued training - whether it be a puppy class or obedience class when they are a little older (5-6 months). There are lots of fun classes out there - like agility and trick classes - also. It all depends how much time and money you want to put into your dog and how you want your dog to be a part of your life. If your dog will be going everywhere with you, they will require more training to be a good, well-behaved citizen.
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