​ *****TRAINING AND SOCIALIZATION*******  Yes we want this one to stand out the most!  Your puppy is literally a tiny ball of HUGE potential when you purchase a poodle from us.  What you put into your puppy in the critical first 12 weeks and then beyond into the first year will determine a huge amount of the rest of it’s life – the more you train and interact, the better your puppy will be. We ARE fans of Puppy Culture and have incorporated a lot of that into how we raise our puppies and we are happy to recommend her training videos with one note: we did find many struggle with clicker training but under stand what she is teaching is called “shaping” and there are other methods to achieve results.   SOCIALIZATION is absolutely KEY in Poodles and must, must be done or they can be very reticent and distrusting of strangers and new situations. It is unrealistic and unfair to wait until six months to a year to expose puppy to life outside the home and expect things to go smoothly.  This breed generally lives to please you. Praise to a Poodle is like the finest chocolate or other special treat- they live for it! This breed is also well noted for it’s high intelligence and that is a part of what has kept them so popular for so many decades.  The downside to all that intelligence is that your puppy can potentially be easily bored and become frustrated.  Boredom is the root of so many behavior problems we hear about and so is a lack of confidence. By doing some basic training EARLY you are setting up situations to reward and praise your puppy. Just like with children, this gives them confidence and makes them happy.  Although poodles don’t have as high a requirement for exercise as many large breeds do, they still need and crave it but it is equally important to keep it age appropriate.   Because socialization is so important, we very much encourage you to take some sort of class with your puppy.  The class doesn’t have to be puppy training.  If you look around, you might find Rally classes which are still basic obedience commands.  Classes are so great also for the added socialization skills.  It is our opinion that the rewards outweight the risks so we suggest joining a class by around 10-11 weeks that specializes in younger puppies. 

From Puppy Culture, here is a link to their age appropriate exercise chart.  https://www.puppyculture.com/new-exercise-chart.html

​ * Socialization – One phrase we will repeat over and over is The Critical First 12 weeks – that is the most inportant time for socialization work to be done.  It can be frustrating to any breeder to hear from a client that their puppy isn’t behaving well, is fearful of guests or going anywhere or that they don’t enjoy going in the car etc.  Your puppy will never enjoy these things if you always leave the pup at home, without meeting new people, smells, and other new experiences. Months later, when you try bring to bring the puppy with you on your errands or visits, they will not know how to handle all of this, as you just turned everything upside down! This is another area where we have taken many steps to help prepare your puppy for the world but you must continue what we’ve started for this to be a success. We can only do so much in 9 weeks. If you want the kind of dog that can go anywhere, do anything and behaves nicely when out and about, you can make that happen, but you must start early.   While still working on those vaccines, you can take trips to low risk places like Home Depot or Lowes – very little dog traffic but puppy rides in the car, sees and hears shopping carts, will meet new people and see and hear new things.  So, think about little short trips you can make weekly at a minimum – even parking lots and walking the sidewalk at a shopping strip is very beneficial.  We do strongly feel it is worth the risk to enter puppy in some sort of classes while still going through vaccinations.  Encourage stangers of all shapes, sizes and colors to pet the puppy and ideally, bring along some treats they can also feed the puppy.  They will associate strangers with good things.  Car sickness is common but often is outgrown so be patient and try using the crate with extra towels to switch out.  Riding in the back is often the bumpiest place to be. Move the pup up closer to the middle of the car.  Raise them up so they can see out and sometimes that eases the motion sickness.  If puppy acts fearul in a situation, calmy back off and distract as best way to handle their fear.   Also, fear stages are very real and occur a few times in the first year of development so when we observe these happening, it’s best to back off a bit.  Wherever you are in training or exposing what has caused the reaction, don’t stop entirely but instead take a few steps back to where they were comfortable and try again later to progress.  As mentioned earlier, you’d be amazed at what you get out of some basic obedience classes. It adds socialization opportunities as well as teaches good manners and confidence.  If your puppy misses the socialiaztion window and has the misfortune of becoming fearful, there are still training methods to help cope with this but you will need to seek help as it becomes much more difficult and more about desensitizing than training.  

* Grooming – Poodles have a coat that grows continuously like hair and therefore do require regular grooming.  It’s unfair and unkind to not have your puppy groomed regularly by yourself or with a trained groomer.  We have taken great care to start this process for you here by grooming them weekly from about four weeks of age so they can become accustomed to it.  We can’t possibly guarantee your puppy will hold it’s paw out to be shaved at 9 weeks eithe, but by continuing the training we’ve started,  your puppy can mature into an adult that isn’t stressed out by the process. This can be a wonderful bonding time if you choose to groom at home, but we recommend starting out with a professional groomer until puppy is mature and trained enough to have good grooming manners.  We HIGHLY recommend forming a good relationship with a groomer. Initially, once vaccines are covered, find one that might be willing to work with you in bringing the puppy in a little more frequently to begin with even if just for a bath and blow dry, until they are comfortable. The groomer can do face and feet as necessary.  If you prefer fuzzier styles, it’s still a very good idea to get frequent bath and blow outs to start with then gradually you can increase time between visits and puppy learns grooming manners.  Either way, the key to your baby not being stressed by the grooming process is lots of early exposure! Your groomer will thank you when he or she doesn’t have to wrestle a fully grown large breed dog that is terrified.