puppy board and train?

[Alexandra]

I'm getting a puppy in a few weeks but as an added bonus, I've put it off 10 more days so that our puppy can receive crate,potty, and basic obedience training. Is this too early for any type of training?
I have 2 small children so the head start on puppy training would be a plus for me but if it's not worth the money, I'd like to know.

[Chris & Boys]

How old is your puppy? Our vet said to start training after 12 weeks.

[Denise, Winnie, and AngelAbby]

It's absolutely worth it... if he is already crate trained, which only takes a few nights, you will find that you will get more sleep starting out. No howling from separation anxiety. And these doodles are soooooo smart that any jump on training is a step in the right direction. It totally amazed me at how fast Abby picked things up. It's never too young to start training...

[Adina P]

Is he getting the training at the breeder? Or are you sending him off somewhere?
I think if he's just continuing to learn stuff at the breeder, sounds fine.
But, I really don't think 10 days with an eight week old puppy is gonna do anything miraculous.
It is a very very easy to teach a doodle puppy "how two" do things like sit, down.
And it's fun too. But that's the easy part. Puppies learn very fast, but chances are you won't have him/her really trained until he/she is at least a year...usually more. And by "trained" I mean actually reliable so that you can be confident that your dog will obey at home and out of the home. I think I would want to bring my puppy home right away--unless he's getting extra socialization I can't give him, YOU can do puppy training easily and it's fun. Plus you want him potty trained at YOUR house so he knows the routine there.

[Alexandra]

Yes, from the breeder. I am most interested in the crate training aspect b/c I don't mind doing the rest of the training myself. I remember when my brother crate trained his cocker spaniel and it barked and whined(very loudly and high pitched) for days ALL night long. He eventually gave up and let her sleep in bed with him. So I thought if the breeder could get just at least that part out of the way for me, it would make the transition SO much easier.

[Renee]

Maybe we were lucky but we got Taffy at 8 weeks and she went into her crate right away and never whined at all. She slept the whole night from the first day. We used to have a crate in our bedroom to sleep in at night, but after one week she kept going in her crate downstairs when I said bedtime, so now she sleeps downstairs all night - no problems.

[Park Mom]

No not too early! We hired a certified, gentle, positive dog trainer to come over for one hour on Bumble's first morning with us. She had terrific advice for potty training and crate training, which you really need right away! She also got down on the floor and showed me how to do a little training with treats for very basic things like name recognition. That part was extremely helpful, just to see how someone very experienced worked with a very young puppy, so I could model my training on her. Finally, she gave us a terrific booklet that I used for basic training through the start of "puppy kindergarten." The net result is that, at 4 1/2 months, Bumble is the most obedient and responsive to commands of any puppy in her class -- although she is also the most energetic!! I am so so glad that we started early. Our trainer charged $80 per hour, by the way, and trainers her in Brooklyn start around there and go up to about $120 per hour.

At first, they can only handle training in about 5 minute spurts, by the way, because they don't have much of an attention span. So it's not that hard to fit in! If you can, try to do it at intervals throughout the day.

Good luck, and have a wonderful start with your new little one!