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Puppy Care Tips

FEEDING - Your puppy has been used to having free access to dry puppy food 24 hours a
day.  It is now time for your puppy to have regularly scheduled meals.  You need to offer 4
meals a day for the first two weeks – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and an evening snack.  
Your puppy may only nibble at these meals or may not be interested at all in some meals.  
You should make the meal available for 15 minutes.  If the bowl is emptied, offer more.  It
is best to feed these meals inside the crate to help establish the crate as its den.  In two
weeks, eliminate the evening snack.  In another two weeks, eliminate lunch.  Your puppy
should be maintained on two meals for the rest of its life.  Mini Goldendoodles should be
given regular puppy food.  Standard Goldendoodles should be given puppy food
formulated for large breed puppies.  

TREATS/REWARDS – Buy a small bag of a different brand of dry puppy food and use the
kibble as a reward.  Your puppy thinks everything other than its typical food is a treat.  
This way you can reward your puppy as often as you like throughout its training and you
haven’t spoiled its appetite with unhealthy or unbalanced treats.  You can also use plain
Cheerios.

THE FIRST WEEK – Your puppy can sleep through the night, but will not because of the
transition and separation anxiety it will experience when going to a new home.  Crate
training is recommended and complete instructions can be found on my website – www.
Goldendoodles.net.  The first night is typically the most difficult and you should see
improvement each night.  You should walk your puppy as the last task before your
bedtime.  Make sure you give it ample time to eliminate.  Then place the puppy in its crate
with a towel or blanket and some toys.  The crate should be just large enough for the
puppy to stand up, turn around, and lay down.  Let the puppy cry itself to sleep.  It may
wake up again and cry, but you should not take the puppy out of the crate until at least 3
hours have passed.  Do not wake a sleeping puppy!  Anytime after the 3 hour limit that the
puppy wakes up crying, take it out to eliminate and then put the puppy back in the crate
and let it cry.  If you are consistent with this method, your puppy should be sleeping
through the night within a week (7 to 9 hours).  

CRATE CONFINEMENT – Your puppy should be placed in the crate during any unsupervised
time.  The crate is used like a playpen for a human toddler.  At 8 weeks of age, your puppy
is on the same level as a one year old human toddler.  One would never allow a one year
old human toddler to have free range of a house or be left unsupervised for even a
minute.  If your puppy has an accident that you do not catch as it is happening, do not
scold the puppy, but instead, scold yourself.  The puppy only associates the scolding with
the act if it is caught in the act.  Each accident that happens in the house is a step
backwards in the training and should be avoided.  A puppy should not be played with on
the floor unless it has just eliminated outside.  This will help to avoid the accident.  If the
playtime exceeds an hour, the puppy should be taken outside to eliminate again.  In the
crate, the limit is 3 hours, but outside the crate, the limit is one hour.  Every month, the
limit can be increased by one hour.

GROOMING – Your puppy should be brushed every day if possible.  Even though you will
not find tangles or mats until the coat grows somewhat, you want your puppy to be used
to being brushed.  If you wait until the coat is tangled or matted, the process will not be
pleasant for your puppy and you want  him/her to learn that grooming is a fun process.  As
the coat grows longer and thicker, make sure you are brushing from the root out so you
don’t leave mats close to the skin.  Brushes you will want to use are a slicker brush to
separate the hairs and a rake when you are done as it will find tangles you missed.  Every
day you should squeeze between the toes gently to desensitize your puppy to make
clipping nails easier.  Nails should be clipped about once a month.  When the adult coat is
in (about 6-9 mos. of age), you will want to brush your dog completely at least twice a
week, but daily is preferred.  At this time, many Goldendoodles need their first trim.  The
dry, unhealthy looking puppy coat can be removed to reveal the healthy adult coat
underneath.  F1 Goldendoodles can be left full coated or can be clipped perhaps 4 times a
year.  F1B Goldendoodles typically need to be clipped every 6-8 weeks.
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