The Early Days
The combination of Cocker and Poodle produce a wonderful intelligent dog, and are ideal for training at an early age.
The early training should be geared towards building a bond and giving your dog confidence to face the big wide world.
In the first weeks you may have the chance to take your puppy to a puppy party at your vet practice, which will give you an opportunity to socialise your puppy and get lots of advice from a vet nurse and maybe a puppy trainer.
At home get your puppy used to a collar and lead. Use this as part of your toilet training as some dogs don’t like toileting on the lead. Let them trail the lead around the house for short times, but only under supervision, and don’t let them chew the lead. If you have a garden, frequently walk them around it on the lead. If you follow these guidelines then hopefully when the big day for the first walk comes along it will be a happy puppy walking boldly out of the house.
Get your puppy used to going in the car even if this is just sitting in the car with the car going nowhere! Remember that the first time they travelled in the car with you was the journey home and possibly the next time was when you took them to the vets for their jabs, which would have both been very stressful experiences for the puppy.
Take your puppy with you whenever and wherever you can to get them used to all the sights and smells.
Handle your puppy to get them used to being touched. You can do this when they are sitting on your knee, when they are calm. Touch their feet, ears, and tail. Hold the tail and firmly run your hand from root to tip but do not pull. Remember that wagging tails are fascinating to small children so it helps if the puppy is used to being touched on the tail. Do the same with their ears, and massage their feet between the toes. Check their teeth by gently holding open their jaw. Hopefully this will help prepare your puppy for those trips to the vet when they will be handled like this as part of the routine check-up.
Start to teach the sit, stand, and down commands, but do this in short sessions using lots of praise and tasty treats.
Once the big day comes and your vet gives you the all clear, enrol your puppy and yourself at puppy classes and your happy bold puppy will be a pleasure to train and own.