Category: Blog

Guest Post by Christi K.

Goldendoodle fur is so soft and snuggly. It’s one of the things we love most about our beloved pooches. Unfortunately, matting is one of those things that we need to pay extra attention to. Mats are not just surface knots. They are a bunch of hair knotted right at the level of the skin, which makes them incredibly hard to get rid of. Let’s learn together how to prevent them so as to avoid shaving our furry friends bald! 

Mats start out as small knots but quickly and easily snowball into big, huge unmanageable clumps of fur. You might think to yourself, “I brush my dog a lot. Why would he get mats?” Fur can clump up and mat for many reasons. Roughhousing and friction are two major causes. Think about your own hair. If you rubbed your hair on your pillow all night and didn’t brush it the next morning, you would have knots. Prevention is key. Brush your dog daily! I can’t stress it enough. 

Water also makes mats tighter. If your Goldendoodle has mats, it’s never a good idea to bathe him/her before brushing them out, or if it’s too far gone, you may need to shave the matted fur prior to bath time. Our doodle likes to swim in our pond. As much as we love watching him swim with our kids and splash around, his fur is always a disaster after. We have to make sure to brush him as soon as he’s done shaking the water off. As a matter of fact, it’s easiest to untangle mats when they’re small, so prevention is essential. Here are some practical ways to prevent matting:

• Short hair doesn’t mat. In fact, if you keep your doodle’s hair ¾” or less in length, you seldomly need to brush it (it’s still a good idea to brush your dog regularly to keep her used to being brushed though).  If you want that adorable shaggy teddy bear look, daily brushing is essential for preventing mats. Doodles with curlier coats will require more frequent brushing to prevent mats than those with wavy or straight coats.
• Swimming in chlorine causes mats, so keep that in mind prior to letting your doodle join you in the pool. It’s wise to keep your doodle in a short summer clip if she’ll be swimming in a chlorinated pool regularly.
• Putting a coat or jacket on your doodle for hikes in the fall can help lessen the number of burs that become tangled in hair. Be sure to promptly remove any burs that do find their way into your dog’s coat, so they don’t develop into unruly mats.
• There are certain areas that are prone to mats, such as under your dog’s ears. Pay extra attention to those areas and address mats quickly. It’s okay to cut out a mat with a pair of blunt tipped scissors. Removing a mat will keep it from growing larger. If the mat is too close to the skin, cut it as close to the skin as possible, comb out what you can of the fur that’s left, and keep an eye on that area over the next few weeks. You’ll be able to remove the base of the mat as the hair grows out.
• Harnesses are a wonderful tool for walks, but allowing your goldendoodle to wear a harness all of the time or to play with other pups while she’s wearing her harness could lead to mats. Harnesses aren’t bad, but be sure to regularly brush your dog’s chest and other areas that the harness touches.

When you’re petting your Goldendoodle, you can easily tell the difference between the soft locks of hair and a mat. If you can’t get your fingers down to their skin, there is probably a mat in the way. Some brushes I would recommend are Chris Christensen Big G and Big K Long Pin Slicker Brushes and a steel grooming comb like ANDIS Steel Pet Comb, 10-in – Chewy.com. 

Using these brushes/combs together is really helpful in the prevention of matting because it helps tremendously if you brush your dog’s fur correctly in the first place. 

I hope you found this helpful to give you some encouragement in keeping your pooch mat-free without the help of a costly groomer all the time.

Guest Post by Christi K.

These pups are ready to go home with you August 19th-21st.

happy birthday: June 24

Gideon & Nylah are the proud parents of EIGHT squishy new babies: four girls and four boys. These little ones are absolutely precious. When first born, puppies depend completely on their mama, so we’re blessed that Nylah does such a great job caring for them. She nurses them almost constantly it seems and snuggles with them. Nylah naps in the whelping box with puppies all over: snuggled under her tail, cuddled under her chin, tucked under her elbows, bedded down in her fur on her back, and snoozing at the milk bar. With a 20lb mama and eight puppies, there are literally puppies everywhere, and it’s absolutely the cutest thing. How sweet are these faces? The pups are about 24 hours old in the picture below. Enjoy those pink noses because they’ll soon start to blacken up.

At first puppies can’t yet walk. Their eyes and ears are closed. They can’t even go to the bathroom on their own. And they can’t maintain their own body temperature. Fortunately God gave puppies a natural instinct to pile together for warmth, so they snuggle together in a giant puppy heap. And they also cuddle around Nylah as she snoozes contentedly, surrounded by her new family. EEGs have revealed that the brain activity of infant puppies is the same when asleep and awake. But these little pups are busy eating, growing, and developing. Nylah’s puppies twitch and pop in their sleep, as all healthy newborn puppies should. This activated sleep helps them build muscle tone.

weekly puppy tip #1: nap time is essential!

Think about a napping place – The puppies spend most of their lives sleeping now, but did you know that your new furbaby is going to need lots of sleep when you bring her home, too? Puppies, just like small children, require naps throughout the day. When your puppy is sleeping, try to allow her to rest untouched (it’s okay for noisy life to carry on around her while she snoozes, but it’s best not to physically disturb her as much as possible). This may mean that you need to guide her to a different spot than the one she’s initially chosen. Puppy Culture estimates that an 8-10 week old puppy sleeps 3 hours and then is awake for 1 hour before going back down for another nap. AKC gives some helpful insight into the importance of puppy sleep:

Although puppies may seem like little bundles of energy, in fact, they sleep 15-20 hours a day. One minute your puppy may be a miniature tornado, and the next he’s fallen soundly asleep, almost mid-activity. Sleep is essential to healthy growth: during sleep his central nervous system, brain, immune system, and muscles are developing. All of that sleep also helps him rest up during growth spurts… household members, especially children, should leave your puppy alone while he is sleeping. Plan his day so that active time is followed by quiet time for sleep. He’ll most likely be ready for a nap after playtime or a walk, sleep for a while and then wake up ready for anything. Your puppy may nap every hour or so, sleeping from 30 minutes to as long as two hours. All of this sleep is perfectly normal.

Jan Reisen from the American Kennel Club (AKC)

You can read the rest of the article here.

one week

Blueberry, the little blue collared boy, decided to be a non-conformist during the one week photoshoot last night, and it made me laugh! Everyone else may be happy sleeping on their bellies, but evidently he already prefers sleeping like a goldendoodle! This breed has so much personality, and your new pup will certainly keep you smiling. We think it’s funny to see our big dogs snoozing on their backs with their bellies in the air like Mr. Blueberry in this picture. Nylah will even sleep like that in the whelping box when she’s relaxing with her crew. The four pups on the left are the boys and the four pups on the right of the picture are the girls in both the pictures above and below.

It’s amazing that even at this young age we can start seeing hints of what the puppies’ adult coats will be like! Most of the puppies look like they’ll have beautiful curls like their mama, but a few look like they’ll be a little less curly. Take a look at these two boys. Can you see how the darker colored pup already has waves and the lighter color pup’s hair looks much straighter? Now go back and take a peek at the newborn picture. Can you see how the tiny curls were already beginning to be evident on some of the pups at only one day old? Isn’t that so cool?!

These little sausages twitch and pop involuntarily during their sleep, developing muscle tone for the near future. This phenomenon is known as “activated sleep.” In a few short weeks, these rolly polly puppies will be bouncing around playfully. Their legs, while still wobbly, have already gotten stronger and the puppies attempt wobble around on them instead of just army crawling as they did initially. Hopefully you enjoyed the Instagram story video of them switching and popping.

The puppies have all had their toenails. It’s important to keep their toenails short now so the pups don’t accidentally scratch mama Nylah when they’re nursing. Toenails grow quickly. Be ready to trim your new pup’s nails every few weeks when she joins your family. Right now we use human nail clippers on the pup’s toenails because they’re so tiny. 

weekly puppy tip #2

Make a puppy experience plan – Compile a list of places you want to take your puppy and experiences you want your puppy to encounter. Any day now, these little eyes will be ready to soak up the sites, and we’ll now start introducing the puppies to items that differ in appearance. We have a thought out socialization plan, working hard to expose your puppy to as much as possible during her time with us. When you take your puppy home, that responsibility then shifts to you as you continue the socialization process. Exposing your puppy to new people, situations, sounds, smells, textures, etc. is extremely important. Give your new puppy a few days to adjust to her new home and new routine. Then begin giving her short, positive experiences (yummy treats make everything more positive!). Don’t try to do too much in one day, as you don’t want to overwhelm or stress her. Start developing ideas of how to want to socialize your new puppy. 

Your goal is for your puppy to meet a minimum of 100 different people by the time she’s six months old. Dr. Ian Dunbar, a puppy socialization expert, raises the bar even higher by recommending that puppies meet 100+ people during the first month at home. If you hope to visit a local nursing home or hospital when your puppy gets older, secure some crutches, walkers or wheelchairs to expose your puppy to at home. Meeting people is just one component of socialization. Think about outdoor experiences that you and your puppy can safely enjoy together. Consider what predictable dogs you can introduce your puppy to (dogs who are predictable, friendly, healthy, and will model good behavior for your pup). Remember, adult dogs aren’t always fond of puppies so be sure to monitor them together. Do you know anyone with a woods or creek where you can take your puppy for a short romp? Remember, you want every experience to be POSITIVE (i.e. bring yummy treats and hand out the praise). Making a plan now, before you bring your puppy home, will help ensure that you follow through with a variety of positive exposures once you have your new little fluff ball at your side. 

Check out AviDog’s free e-book for more ideas about what to add to your puppy experience plan. Baxter & Bella also has some great ideas for socializing your puppy.

two weeks

Have you ever heard the term “dog pile”? Well now you know where that phrase comes from! Puppies naturally gravitate towards each other. If they’re spread apart, it’s usually because they’re hot. It sure doesn’t seem like sleeping in a heap could be all that comfy, do you think? Goldendoodles are notorious for being silly sleepers. Last week, Blueberry was the nonconformist who wanted to snooze on his back during the group photoshoot. Today, Plushy (green collar) is the back sleeper. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if your puppy enjoys sleeping on her back like this when she joins your family.

These puppies are so stinking precious! And they’re getting little round bellies, too! The puppies have all broken the 1lb mark, which means that they’ve doubled their birth weights. They may seem big in the pictures, but they’re still so tiny! One pound. That’s a whole lot of growth since they were born, yet still a small fraction of what they’ll be as adults. Despite rotund bellies, the pups are beginning to take wobbly steps.

Don’t they look much more like little dogs than they did last week? Next week they’ll look even more like miniature dogs. It’s so fascinating to watch the incredible growth and development that happens in such a short amount of time. The puppies are still in a calm, quiet environment. Soon they’ll be ready for the chaos of our main living area but not quite yet. They get around their whelping box fairly quickly on wobbly legs, and it’s fun to see them attempting to walk instead of belly crawl.

The biggest, most exciting change since last week is that puppies’ eye have just started opening. It’s so fun to see them looking back at us. Eye opening is a process that doesn’t happen all in one day. When puppy eyes first open, they’re blue and cloudy and the pups peer through little slits that are barely open. But as the eyes change from their cloudy blue appearance, they open wider and the puppy’s vision becomes crisper.

The puppies have all had their toenails twice now. It’s important to keep their toenails short now so the pups don’t accidentally scratch mama Maple when they’re nursing. Toenails grow quickly. Be ready to trim your new pup’s nails every few weeks when she joins your family. Right now we use human nail clippers on the pup’s toenails because they’re so tiny. 

weekly puppy tip #3: age appropriate exercise

Glance over Puppy Culture’s exercise chart. Familiarize yourself with what sorts of activities are appropriate for your puppy at different stages of development. You want to give your puppy a variety of unique positive experiences, but your puppy is still growing & developing, so you don’t want to push your puppy too far. For instance, climbing up one to two stairs is an appropriate challenge but climbing a flight of stairs is not a good idea for a young puppy (a study done on 500 dogs showed that puppies allowed to climb a flight of stairs regularly before 3 months old were more likely to develop hip dysplasia). Remember, free running and playing is a great option because your puppy can rest whenever she feels inclined to do so. If you’d like to read more about puppy exercise, check out AviDog’s puppy exercise guidelines. This article from AKC also gives some helpful puppy exercise tips.

3 weeks

I realized that I haven’t shared the temporary names for this crew with you yet. Our kids always take great joy in naming the puppies and begin thinking of names weeks before the puppies arrive. This litter is a little extra special because Nylah’s two human brothers helps select names. The boys: Plushy (green), Blueberry (blue), Tux (red), and Peter Puppy Tail (red). The girls are: Orangie (orange), Gingie (purple), Diamond (pink), and Hwin (white).

Aren’t these little pumpkins really looking like miniature dogs now? Look at those open eyes! When puppy eyes first open, they’re blue and cloudy but as the eyes change from their cloudy blue appearance, they open more and the puppy’s vision becomes crisper. We give the puppies different objects to explore, and it’s fun to watch them interact with each toy. The pups still spend the majority of their time snoozing, but they’re also starting to play with each other. Their clumsy play right now looks like it’s happening in slow motion.

Look at those adorable curls on her forehead! All four girls are going to have beautiful coats of fluffy curls – just like their mama. It’s fun to see those tiny waves on their foreheads becoming more pronounced. The puppies have had their toenails trimmed again. Those front toenails grow so quickly. They puppies have recently discovered that they can bark, and sometimes a seemingly random high pitched bark rings out. They surprise themselves with the sounds that come out of their own mouths!

These puppies may still seem incredibly small, but they’ve really packed on the pounds. In fact, a few pups have crossed over the big 2lb mark and rest are rapidly approaching it. That’s a lot of growing! These sweet little pumpkins continue to dedicate their entire lives to eating and sleeping – and it shows! And all this growing means that they’ve graduated to big pup collars! We use break-free collars to keep our littles safe from the risk of strangulation, but these special safety collars feel like “normal” collars to the puppies, so they’ll go home used to the feel of wearing a collar.

weekly puppy tip #4: be the leader your puppy wants you to be

It’s essential that you establish yourself as the pack leader. Your puppy doesn’t want to be in charge – that’s a scary place to be! Your puppy wants to look to you as the leader, but you have to show yourself as worth of the role by being the leader (this also helps set your kids apart as ranking higher in the pack than your new pup). Some easy ways to establish your leadership include:

• Sit down with your puppy each night before bed and briefly touch your puppy EVERYWHERE. Kneel on the floor with your puppy sitting between your legs. Start by petting your puppy’s head and tell him “head, head.” Then check his mouth, telling him “teeth, teeth,” and look inside his ears telling him “ear, ears.” Briefly go over your puppy from nose to tail in this fashion. This helps establish that you’re allowed to touch your puppy anywhere and everywhere. (see the video below)
• Set boundaries so there is at least one place in your home that your dog isn’t allowed to go in your home (i.e. not allowed to jump on your bed, not allowed to sit on a particular couch or not allowed into a certain room). 
• Teach you puppy to sit and wait for you to walk out the front door before her and give her the “okay” before she is permitted to walk through it. If you’ve been consistent, your puppy will offer a sit and wait for a release word (i.e. “okay”) before coming inside by 3 months old. When she’s old enough to start walking freely up and down stairs, teach her to wait for you to finish climbing/descending the stairs before she comes. 
• Encourage your puppy sit and wait for you to give her the “okay” before she is allowed to approach her food bowl. Periodically pick up your puppy’s food bowl while she’s eating, reward her with a yummy treat, and return the food bowl. (we’ll talk about the Toy Trade Game and other educational games you can play with your puppy next week).
• Teach your puppy to do a long down during meal times. Buy a soft rug or bed and teach your puppy to go lay on it on command. We have our own adult dogs lay on a rug in a down stay during dinner. Maple was doing a down stay along side them at 6 months old for the entire length of our meal – which means your puppy can do it at a young age, too!

four weeks

I can’t believe how quickly these babies are growing up! There have been so much happening this week! The puppies have moved downstairs, tasted kibble, played with Maple’s puppies, enjoyed exploring outside, gone on a road trip, had their bottoms shaved with the clippers, slept in a crate together overnight, met a bunch of new faces during Maple’s meet & greet…  It’s been a busy week! At first pups needed a calm, quiet environment without too much stimulation. But now they’re ready for the chaos that exists in the main part of our home, and the vastness of exploring the great outdoors! The pups moved into a small puppy area earlier in the week, and we gradually allowed them to play in the bigger puppy play yard (aka Puppy Town). We continue to give these munchkins new toys to spark their curiosity. And we continue to snuggle them! They shower us with kisses, and we shower them with kisses, too! We’ve also started taking them outside. First once a day for a brief period and now more frequently. Trotting on wood chips, bounding through the grass, climbing over rocks – it’s great for the puppies to experience a variety of surfaces and textures. These pups have had their toenails trimmed for the third or fourth time now, they’ve sniffed noses with some other dogs besides their mama (Abria enjoys being an auntie), they’ve enjoyed fresh warmed goat milk, they’ve had fun playing with each other and with Maple’s puppies… So much has happened this week! The growing and developing puppies do in the first four weeks is absolutely outstanding! Scroll up and look at the pictures from last week and compare them to this week’s pictures. Isn’t it incredible how much these puppies have grown and changed in such a short time?!

The puppies are still enjoy mama Nylah’s (and mama Maple’s!) delicious, nutritious milk. I can’t imagine nursing a litter of babies! It doesn’t look like fun, but Nylah still nurses of all her sweet babies. It’s a crazy chaotic scramble of puppies as everyone climbs over, under, and on top of everyone else trying to secure a milk tap before anyone can snag it. It’s easy to tell when the milk starts flowing because the pups suddenly calm and you can hear their little gulps as they melt into a moment of pure milk enjoyment. The puppies have also started eating moistened TLC puppy kibble, and they think it’s pretty tasty too. Soon they’ll be chowing down on dry kibble, but for now while their teeth are coming in, the soften food makes for a perfect meal. Your little one will be accustomed to eating TLC puppy food. You should be receiving an email directly from TLC in the next week. In our weekly puppy tip below, you’ll learn about the trade game. Once your new fluffball is adjusted to your home, you can periodically use your puppy’s dinner bowl to play the game, working on preventing resource guarding. Taking a few minutes to work with your puppy while she’s young can go a long way in preventing unwanted behavior. Pick up a pack of hot dogs or other delicious treat and occasionally pick up your pup’s bowl while she’s eating, exchanging her kibble for a sliver of hot dog, and then returning her food bowl to her (see the trade game from weekly puppy tip #5).

5 (and a half) weeks

weekly puppy tip #5: Get ready to play educational games with your puppy!

Did you know that there are fun games you can play with your puppy that teach him beneficial skills? It’s great to incorporate regular educational games into your puppy’s routine, so read through these suggestions, add any needed supplies to your puppy shopping list, and get ready for puppy playtime!

• Ball On The Wall – Encourages retrieving
  • Supplies: A ball that your puppy can carry in her mouth
  • How to play: Sit on the floor about 1-5’ from a wall. Put your legs in a “V” and sit facing the wall with your puppy between you and the wall. Toss the ball at the wall, encouraging your puppy to go after it. Give your puppy lots of praise when she brings the ball back! 
  • Variation: Once you’ve mastered Ball On The Wall, try playing retrieve in a hallway with all the doors closed (so your puppy can’t run away with the ball).
• Toy Trade – Prevents resource guarding
  • Supplies: A toy that your puppy likes but doesn’t highly value and a high value treat
  • How to play: Briefly play with your puppy using the toy. Ask your puppy for the toy by offering her a high value treat. Reward & praise her for giving you the toy, and give the toy back to her as soon as she finishes chewing. Gradually work on having her give you objects of higher value (i.e. a bone).
  • Variation: Work on teaching your puppy the command “give” and ask her to drop the toy/bone on command in exchange for the high value treat.
• Hide & Seek – Encourages recall
  • Supplies: Yummy treats
  • How to play: Run away from your puppy, hide behind a corner, tree, couch or other object, and call your puppy to encourage her to find you. When she does, give her lots of praise and a yummy treat.
  • Variation: Play Ping Pong by having a partner play with you and take turns hiding. While the first person is rewarding the puppy for coming, the second person hides.

Check out how much these puppies have grown since last week! Peter Puppy Tail & Gingie, pictured above, are the last two puppies I shared pictures of last week (if you’re on a computer, their pictures this week should be in line with their pictures from last week). They’ve gotten bigger and fluffier and cuter, haven’t they? Haven’t they changed a lot in one week?

Five weeks is such a fun age! These puppies are cuter every day! Their individual personalities are showing through. They’ve transformed from little guinea pigs who can’t see or hear to actual miniature dogs who run around and play and give kisses. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the short video clips on our Instagram story. I’m trying to share short videos there regularly so you can see what the puppies are up to each day. You’ve probably noticed that a number of those videos have been outside. The pups been going outside to potty multiple times a day now (rain or shine!).

The puppies have started eating dry TLC kibble now. At first they ate soften, moist kibble and now they’ve transitioned to straight dry kibble. Nylah (and Maple) continues to nurse them throughout the day. The puppies trot about, exploring the world around them. They enjoy playing with the different toys in their pen, and they enjoy playing with each other, too. The pups don’t sit still for long, except for when they’re on your lap or sleeping, so pictures are challenging – unless they’re sleeping! In between their short bursts of energy, they still spend much of their time snoozing. If you sit on the floor, you’re sure to have a lap full of puppies! Each night we divide the litter in half and put the pups in two crates for the night( everyone is in a crate with their buddies – no one is confined alone at this age).

Weekly Puppy Tip #6

Pick out and sign up for a puppy class – A puppy class is essential both for socialization and manners. Look for a class that emphasizes positive reinforcement, as learning & training should be a fun game at this point. Clicker training is a plus. This article from AKC gives some pointers about what to look for in a puppy class. Many dog training facilities will allow your new friend join their puppy class around 12 weeks of age, once she has received her second set of immunizations.

We prefer in person puppy class over virtual hands down, but having online recourses is incredibly helpful, too. Timberidge Goldendoodles is excited to partner with Baxter & Bella. These online resources, virtual classes, and video training tips are an amazing option for every puppy owner – there are even a variety of resources to help you now as you prepare for your new furry family member. Plus membership is for a lifetime, so you can access Baxter & Bella’s tools repeatedly over the years ahead for each and every furry child that joins your family. 

Use the discount code TIMBERIDGE to save 25% when you join Baxter & Bella!

Here’s a short video from Baxter & Bella’s about how to train your puppy to respond positively the someone ringing your doorbell. You can take this same principle and apply it to a variety of other circumstances, such as teaching your puppy to walk calmly past another dog who is going crazy. You can find more free puppy training videos here. Remember, the best thing you can do to prepare for your new puppy is to prepare yourself!

6 weeks

It’s been another busy week full of fun puppy adventures. The puppies have played outside A LOT! The puppies have ventured on another road trip this week. It’s good for them to get used to playing in different locations/ new environments, and they’ve enjoyed exploring the new situations. We’re working hard to expose these pups to a variety of sights, sounds, smells, environments – and in just a few short weeks, it will be your turn to continue that socialization process with your new pup. Another new excitement of the week is that the puppies have officially started eating dry kibble. They have been eating TLC puppy food for some time now, but at first we moisten it and then gradually transition to completely dry. If you haven’t received an email from TLC, please let me know. The puppies have a blast playing with Maple’s pups and they have enjoyed sniffing noses with some adult dogs besides mamas Nylah & Maple this week too. Hopefully the Instagram story videos of the pups with Ivy made you smile. We were all laughing watching Ivy pull her blanket around the kitchen with numerous puppies hitch hiking rides!

weekly puppy tip #7

Get ready to groom! – Your puppy has had her nails clipped and hair trimmed during her time with us, so she has already had her initial introduction to a lifetime of being groomed. Take her to the groomer for a puppy clip after her 16-week immunizations. The groomer will bathe her, trim the hair out of her eyes, give her a sanitary clip, and trim her nails. Since she will need regular grooming throughout her life, both she and the groomer will benefit if she becomes accustomed to being groomed from a young age, even before she’s ready for a full haircut. 

When should she have her first big girl haircut? The wavy adult coat will start replacing the soft, fluffy puppy coat around 5-6 months of age. You’ll notice the new hair coming in is kinkier than the pure fluff on top. Waiting to cut the hair until the adult coat makes its debut beneath the layers of puppy plush helps ensure that the adult coat remains soft. Many poodle groomers and poodle fanciers claim that shaving a poodle or goldendoodle down before her adult coat starts coming in could damage the adult coat, affecting the texture. While there isn’t any substantiated evidence that this is true, it’s worth avoiding just in case. That doesn’t mean that your puppy might not benefit from a puppy clip in the meantime! Don’t let your puppy’s hair get out of control! As aforementioned, take him to the groomer for a puppy clip after her 16-week immunizations. When the time comes, check out the grooming section on our website for a variety of goldendoodle haircut pictures. Learn more about your Goldendoodle puppy’s first trip to the groomer. We have a plethora of haircut resources under the “grooming” tab on the main menu bar.

Waiting until 6 months for the first full big girl clip does NOT mean you’re off the hook for grooming at home! You should regularly groom your puppy: brushing her hair, cleaning her ears, brushing her teeth, clipping her toenails, and checking her for any anomalies (i.e. ticks, cuts, etc.). You want your puppy to become accustomed to being brushed and handled all over from a young age. We HIGHLY recommend doing regular bonding/body handling exercises with your puppy (demonstrated in the video shared on weekly puppy tip #4). Goldendoodles are a breed that like routines (thanks to those poodle ancestors), so it’s nice to do bonding exercises every night just before your put your puppy in her crate for bed. It’s easy to incorporate different parts of grooming into your nightly bonding exercises, just doing a little here and a little there since young puppies don’t have the attention span for lots of grooming at once.

seven weeks

The puppies are so much fun! They bound around outside, finding things to chew and places to explore. They also sneak around the house, trying to investigate new places. We continue to take the puppies on new and different adventures. It’s fun to see their curiosity! The pups enjoy any new toy we throw their way, and they are still very fond of their slide and adventure box (they especially seem to have a blast tugging on the blue blanket). 

Be sure to pick up a special extra yummy chew that your puppy only gets during (daytime) crate time

Aren’t these pups adorable? Now scroll back and look at their newborn pictures. Isn’t it marvelous that in just seven weeks they’ve transformed from little guinea pigs into gorgeous, fluffy puppies?!

weekly puppy tip #8

Fostering the children/dog relationship – Goldendoodles are family dogs by nature, but there are a few steps you can take to help set your puppy and your kids up for a lifetime of friendship:

1. When your puppy is sleeping, let her sleep – your puppy is growing & developing and she NEEDS that sleep. Teach your children to respect a sleeping puppy by not interrupting her. Your puppy’s crate should be her safe retreat. When she’s in her crate, allow her to enjoy safe, undisturbed quiet time- this doesn’t mean that you all need to tip toe quietly around when the puppies napping! It just means that when the puppy is napping, let her enjoy that peaceful sleep untouched and wake up on her own good time.
2. Involve your children in daily puppy care – allowing your children to participate in caring for the puppy will help grow the bond between them and their furry friend. It also helps the puppy learn associate good things with little people and helps her see the children as above her in the pack order. Younger children particularly love being helpers. Our kids enjoy (aka fight over) feeding the dogs, letting them out of their crates, opening the back door to let the dogs in/out, etc. We let them help brush the dogs with much supervision (remember, we want all puppy experiences to be POSITIVE!). Our children also love holding leashes on walks (children should only take your dog on a walk with adult supervision). If you don’t trust your puppy to not pull a young child over, you can attach two short leashes to one dog so both you & your child have a leash to hold. Be cognizant of your child’s age and maturity level. Older children can be more actively involved and younger children can be involved in smaller ways.
3. Encourage your children to play with the puppy – puppy nips and jumps can be intimidating for some children. Teaching children how to act calmly around a puppy and how to play intentional games such as fetch and educational games (see some suggestions under week 3) can help both the children and the puppy learn how to interact with each other. Explain to your children that your puppy isn’t trying to hurt them when she’s nipping – she’s asking them to play with her.
4. Include your children in puppy training – when you enroll your puppy in a puppy kindergarten class, ask about bringing your child along (assuming he’s old enough and mature enough to participate). Our children enjoy practicing sits and downs with our dogs, dolling out hotdog slivers to the eager participants. Our dogs think it’s great! Be sure to always supervise children/puppy training sessions.
5. Teach your children to respect the puppy – sometimes it’s challenging for children, especially young ones, to distinguish between their favorite stuffie and a real-life fluffy puppy. Many children need to be patiently taught to be gentle and kind with animals. “No hugging dogs” is a rule in our home because a preschooler bear hug around the neck is too much our small dogs (our dogs don’t mind but we’re afraid they might accidentally get hurt since they’re significantly smaller than the ones dolling out the hugs). If there are times when you aren’t able to supervise your children’s interaction with your puppy, it might be best (and safest) to put your puppy in her crate. Remember, that crate should be your puppy’s safe place. This article by AKC has more helpful tips about teaching children to respect dogs.
6. Establish a safe place for your dog, usually either a dog bed or crate. Teach your children that when the puppy is in her safe place, they need to let her alone and they may not touch her. Your puppy will learn that she can retreat to her safe place if she becomes overwhelmed with a situation or if she just needs a nap.

getting ready

Puppy supplies

We’ve created a puppy shopping list to guide you as you prepare to bring your new pup home! Go ahead and pick up a Snuggle Puppy (with a heartbeat) to bring with you on meet & greet day. If you have a crate, you’re welcome to leave that with us that on meet & greet day as well and we’ll start getting your puppy used to her new future “bedroom.”

Baxter & Bella: first 2 weeks with a new puppy

These are all short 1-3 minute videos that are helpful to watch. You’ll learn how to teach your puppy and get ideas for establishing good behaviors from day one. These videos show Amy Jensen training Chili, her young goldendoodle puppy

• Puppy pen & day one crate introduction
• Impulse control
• Toy trade game, building a marker 
• Mat work & teaching your puppy to settle
• Teaching your puppy to sit to say “please”
• Settling in a crate, redirecting
• Come
• Keeping an eye on your puppy while you’re being productive & preventing resource guarding
• Helping your puppy enjoy being brushed
• Introducing a harness or therapy vest
• Walking on a leash
• “Drop it” command
• Example of a puppy-sized training session (training sessions should only be 1-2 minutes long for an 8-10 week old puppy)

If you’re eager to learn more, Baxter & Bella’s online resources, virtual classes, and video training tips are an amazing option for every puppy owner. Plus membership is for a lifetime, so you can access Baxter & Bella’s tools repeatedly over the years ahead for each and every furry child that joins your family. Use the discount code TIMBERIDGE to save 25% when you join Baxter & Bella!

If you plan to do service or therapy work with your puppy, the harness introduction and “touch” are both important to start early on. In addition, watch GoodWill or Facebook Marketplace to find assistive mobility assistive such as a cane, crutches, walker, wheel chair, etc. that your puppy may encounter during therapy visits. You’ll want to familiar your puppy with those items early on.

Puppy Culture: first 2 weeks with a new puppy

You will have to put the free course into your cart and check out. Much of this program you can just listen to without actually watching, so this is a great have this on hand while you’re driving. If you only have time to watch part of this course, I recommend watching: Class 1 part 2 about setting up your puppy’s spot at home and Class 2 part 1 about structuring your puppy’s day.Bringing your puppy home by Puppy Culture

Puppy-sized exercise 

Puppy Culture explains why age appropriate exercise is critical for your puppy in this article. Also be sure to check out Puppy Culture’s exercise guideline poster and the AviDog (Good Dog) Fit For Life puppy exercise guidelines.

happy birthday: June 23rd

Maple & Boaz are the proud parents of six squishy new babies: two girls and four boys. These little ones are absolutely precious. When first born, puppies depend completely on their mama, so we’re blessed that Maple does such a great job caring for them. She nurses them almost constantly it seems and snuggles with them (sometimes Maple nurse them while lying on her back with her belly up in the air – it makes us laugh!). How sweet are these faces? The pups are less than 24 hours old in the picture above.

Our kids have given the puppies temporary names. The girls are Strawberry (pink collar) and Snoopy (purple collar). The boys are Chester (blue collar), Tucker (green collar), Star (yellow collar), and Carrot (red collar). If you’ve ever read Cricket in Times Square, you may recognize the named Tucker & Chester.

At first puppies can’t yet walk. Their eyes and ears are closed. They can’t go to the bathroom on their own. And they can’t maintain their own body temperature. Fortunately God gave puppies a natural instinct to pile together for warmth, so they snuggle together in a giant puppy heap. And they also cuddling around Maple as she snoozes contentedly, surrounded by her new family. EEGs have revealed that the brain activity of infant puppies is the same when asleep and awake. But these little pups are busy eating, growing, and developing. Maple’s puppies twitch and pop in their sleep, as all healthy newborn puppies should. This activated sleep helps them build muscle tone.

weekly puppy tip #1: nap time is essential!

Think about a napping place – The puppies spend most of their lives sleeping now, but did you know that your new furbaby is going to need lots of sleep when you bring her home, too? Puppies, just like small children, require naps throughout the day. When your puppy is sleeping, try to allow her to rest untouched (it’s okay for noisy life to carry on around her while she snoozes, but it’s best not to physically disturb her as much as possible). This may mean that you need to guide her to a different spot than the one she’s initially chosen. Puppy Culture estimates that an 8-10 week old puppy sleeps 3 hours and then is awake for 1 hour before going back down for another nap. AKC gives some helpful insight into the importance of puppy sleep:

Although puppies may seem like little bundles of energy, in fact, they sleep 15-20 hours a day. One minute your puppy may be a miniature tornado, and the next he’s fallen soundly asleep, almost mid-activity. Sleep is essential to healthy growth: during sleep his central nervous system, brain, immune system, and muscles are developing. All of that sleep also helps him rest up during growth spurts… household members, especially children, should leave your puppy alone while he is sleeping. Plan his day so that active time is followed by quiet time for sleep. He’ll most likely be ready for a nap after playtime or a walk, sleep for a while and then wake up ready for anything. Your puppy may nap every hour or so, sleeping from 30 minutes to as long as two hours. All of this sleep is perfectly normal.

Jan Reisen from the American Kennel Club (AKC)

You can read the rest of the article here.

one week

It’s hard to believe that these babies are already one week old! They have grown so much! These puppies may still seem incredibly small but they’ve really packed on the pounds, in fact they’ve all doubled their birth weights and passed over the 1lb mark. That’s a lot of growing! These sweet little pumpkins continue to dedicate their entire lives to eating and sleeping – and it shows! They are fat little sausages with adorable wrinkles and rolls. And all this growing means that they’ve graduated to big pup collars! We use break-free collars to keep our littles safe from the risk of strangulation, but these special safety collars feel like “normal” collars to the puppies, so they’ll go home used to the feel of wearing a collar.

They twitch and pop involuntarily during their sleep, developing muscle tone for the near future. This phenomenon is known as “activated sleep.” In a few short weeks, these rolly polly puppies will be bouncing around playfully. Their legs, while still wobbly, have already gotten stronger and the puppies wobble around on them instead of just army crawling as they did initially.

weekly puppy tip #2

Make a puppy experience plan – Compile a list of places you want to take your puppy and experiences you want your puppy to encounter. Any day now, these little eyes will be ready to soak up the sites, and we’ll now start introducing the puppies to items that differ in appearance. We have a thought out socialization plan, working hard to expose your puppy to as much as possible during her time with us. When you take your puppy home, that responsibility then shifts to you as you continue the socialization process. Exposing your puppy to new people, situations, sounds, smells, textures, etc. is extremely important. Give your new puppy a few days to adjust to her new home and new routine. Then begin giving her short, positive experiences (yummy treats make everything more positive!). Don’t try to do too much in one day, as you don’t want to overwhelm or stress her. Start developing ideas of how to want to socialize your new puppy. 

Your goal is for your puppy to meet a minimum of 100 different people by the time she’s six months old. Dr. Ian Dunbar, a puppy socialization expert, raises the bar even higher by recommending that puppies meet 100+ people during the first month at home. If you hope to visit a local nursing home or hospital when your puppy gets older, secure some crutches, walkers or wheelchairs to expose your puppy to at home. Meeting people is just one component of socialization. Think about outdoor experiences that you and your puppy can safely enjoy together. Consider what predictable dogs you can introduce your puppy to (dogs who are predictable, friendly, healthy, and will model good behavior for your pup). Remember, adult dogs aren’t always fond of puppies so be sure to monitor them together. Do you know anyone with a woods or creek where you can take your puppy for a short romp? Remember, you want every experience to be POSITIVE (i.e. bring yummy treats and hand out the praise). Making a plan now, before you bring your puppy home, will help ensure that you follow through with a variety of positive exposures once you have your new little fluff ball at your side. 

Check out AviDog’s free e-book for more ideas about what to add to your puppy experience plan. Baxter & Bella also has some great ideas for socializing your puppy.

two weeks

These puppies are so stinking precious! And they’re incredibly chunky! It’s fair to say that Maple is diligent about making sure her puppies are well fed. Despite their rotund bellies, the pups are beginning to take wobbly steps. Don’t they look much more like little dogs than they did last week? The puppies are still in a calm, quiet environment. Soon they’ll be ready for the chaos of our main living area but not quite yet. They get around their whelping box fairly quickly on wobbly legs, and it’s fun to see them attempting to walk instead of belly crawl.

But seriously, aren’t these little sausages getting cuter and cuter each week?! These sweet dumplings are getting so big! The puppies continue to enjoy nursing regularly. It’s a crazy, active puppy pile as they all search for the perfect milk tap. Once the milk starts flowing, they all settle down and enjoy the delicious warmness filling their chunky bellies. Their happy tails tell us that they enjoy nursing. Hopefully you enjoyed the Instagram story clip of the puppies nursing.

The puppies have all had their toenails. It’s important to keep their toenails short now so the pups don’t accidentally scratch mama Maple when they’re nursing. Toenails grow quickly. Be ready to trim your new pup’s nails every few weeks when she joins your family. Right now we use human nail clippers on the pup’s toenails because they’re so tiny.

The biggest, most exciting change since last week is that puppies’ eye have just started opening. It’s so fun to see them looking back at us. Eye opening is a process that doesn’t happen all in one day.

weekly puppy tip #3: age appropriate exercise

Glance over Puppy Culture’s exercise chart. Familiarize yourself with what sorts of activities are appropriate for your puppy at different stages of development. You want to give your puppy a variety of unique positive experiences, but your puppy is still growing & developing, so you don’t want to push your puppy too far. For instance, climbing up one to two stairs is an appropriate challenge but climbing a flight of stairs is not a good idea for a young puppy (a study done on 500 dogs showed that puppies allowed to climb a flight of stairs regularly before 3 months old were more likely to develop hip dysplasia). Remember, free running and playing is a great option because your puppy can rest whenever she feels inclined to do so. If you’d like to read more about puppy exercise, check out AviDog’s puppy exercise guidelines. This article from AKC also gives some helpful puppy exercise tips.

three weeks

Aren’t these little pumpkins really looking like miniature dogs now? Look at those open eyes! When puppy eyes first open, they’re blue and cloudy but as the eyes change from their cloudy blue appearance, they open more and the puppy’s vision becomes crisper. We give the puppies different objects to explore, and it’s fun to watch them interact with each toy. There’s one toy that rattles a little, and we can hear them exploring it from the other room. The pups still spend the majority of their time snoozing, but they’re also starting to play with each other. Their clumsy play right now looks like it’s happening in slow motion.

weekly puppy tip #4: be the leader your puppy wants you to be

It’s essential that you establish yourself as the pack leader. Your puppy doesn’t want to be in charge – that’s a scary place to be! Your puppy wants to look to you as the leader, but you have to show yourself as worth of the role by being the leader (this also helps set your kids apart as ranking higher in the pack than your new pup). Some easy ways to establish your leadership include:

• Sit down with your puppy each night before bed and briefly touch your puppy EVERYWHERE. Kneel on the floor with your puppy sitting between your legs. Start by petting your puppy’s head and tell him “head, head.” Then check his mouth, telling him “teeth, teeth,” and look inside his ears telling him “ear, ears.” Briefly go over your puppy from nose to tail in this fashion. This helps establish that you’re allowed to touch your puppy anywhere and everywhere. (see the video below)
• Set boundaries so there is at least one place in your home that your dog isn’t allowed to go in your home (i.e. not allowed to jump on your bed, not allowed to sit on a particular couch or not allowed into a certain room). 
• Teach you puppy to sit and wait for you to walk out the front door before her and give her the “okay” before she is permitted to walk through it. If you’ve been consistent, your puppy will offer a sit and wait for a release word (i.e. “okay”) before coming inside by 3 months old. When she’s old enough to start walking freely up and down stairs, teach her to wait for you to finish climbing/descending the stairs before she comes. 
• Encourage your puppy sit and wait for you to give her the “okay” before she is allowed to approach her food bowl. Periodically pick up your puppy’s food bowl while she’s eating, reward her with a yummy treat, and return the food bowl. (we’ll talk about the Toy Trade Game and other educational games you can play with your puppy next week).
• Teach your puppy to do a long down during meal times. Buy a soft rug or bed and teach your puppy to go lay on it on command. We have our own adult dogs lay on a rug in a down stay during dinner. Maple was doing a down stay along side them at 6 months old for the entire length of our meal – which means your puppy can do it at a young age, too!

four weeks

I can’t believe how quickly these babies are growing up! The biggest news of the week is that they moved downstairs AND they’ve tested kibble for the first time! At first pups needed a calm, quiet environment without too much stimulation. But now they’re ready for the chaos that exists in the main part of our home! The pups moved into a small puppy area earlier in the week and we have been gradually expanding their puppy play yard. We introduced a crate yesterday, and it was fun to come downstairs this morning to find all six puppies sleeping in the crate! We continue to give the munchkins new toys to spark their curiosity. And we continue to snuggle them! They shower us with kisses, and we shower them with kisses, too! These pups have had their toenails trimmed for the third time now, they’ve sniffed noses with some other dogs besides their mama (Abria enjoys being an auntie), they’ve enjoyed goat milk, they’ve started playing with each other (it’s hilarious to watch because it’s like watching them play in slow motion)… So much has happened this week! The growing and developing puppies do in the first four weeks is absolutely outstanding! In just one month, these pups have gone from being unable to walk to playing with each other. In just one month, they’ve gone from having eyes & ears that are shut to curiously exploring the world around them. In just one month, they’ve gone from being entirely dependent on Maple to using a potty area in their pen, interacting with each other, and giving us kisses! It’s so fun to watch all of that growing and developing unfold. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying the Instagram story videos of the puppies this week.

The puppies are still enjoy mama Maple’s delicious, nutritious milk. I can’t imagine nursing a litter of babies! It doesn’t look like fun, but Maple still nurses of all her sweet babies. It’s a crazy chaotic scramble of puppies as everyone climbs over, under, and on top of everyone else trying to secure a milk tap before anyone can snag it. It’s easy to tell when the milk starts flowing because the pups suddenly calm and you can hear their little gulps as they melt into a moment of pure milk enjoyment. The puppies have also started eating moistened TLC puppy kibble, and they think it’s pretty tasty too. Soon they’ll be chowing down on dry kibble, but for now while their teeth are coming in, the soften food makes for a perfect meal. Your little one will be accustomed to eating TLC puppy food. You should be receiving an email directly from TLC in the next week. In our weekly puppy tip below, you’ll learn about the trade game. Once your new fluffball is adjusted to your home, you can periodically use your puppy’s dinner bowl to play the game, working on preventing resource guarding. Taking a few minutes to work with your puppy while she’s young can go a long way in preventing unwanted behavior. Pick up a pack of hot dogs or other delicious treat and occasionally pick up your pup’s bowl while she’s eating, exchanging her kibble for a sliver of hot dog, and then returning her food bowl to her (see the trade game from weekly puppy tip #5).

weekly puppy tip #5: Get ready to play educational games with your puppy!

Did you know that there are fun games you can play with your puppy that teach him beneficial skills? It’s great to incorporate regular educational games into your puppy’s routine, so read through these suggestions, add any needed supplies to your puppy shopping list, and get ready for puppy playtime!

• Ball On The Wall – Encourages retrieving
  • Supplies: A ball that your puppy can carry in her mouth
  • How to play: Sit on the floor about 1-5’ from a wall. Put your legs in a “V” and sit facing the wall with your puppy between you and the wall. Toss the ball at the wall, encouraging your puppy to go after it. Give your puppy lots of praise when she brings the ball back! 
  • Variation: Once you’ve mastered Ball On The Wall, try playing retrieve in a hallway with all the doors closed (so your puppy can’t run away with the ball).
• Toy Trade – Prevents resource guarding
  • Supplies: A toy that your puppy likes but doesn’t highly value and a high value treat
  • How to play: Briefly play with your puppy using the toy. Ask your puppy for the toy by offering her a high value treat. Reward & praise her for giving you the toy, and give the toy back to her as soon as she finishes chewing. Gradually work on having her give you objects of higher value (i.e. a bone).
  • Variation: Work on teaching your puppy the command “give” and ask her to drop the toy/bone on command in exchange for the high value treat.
• Hide & Seek – Encourages recall
  • Supplies: Yummy treats
  • How to play: Run away from your puppy, hide behind a corner, tree, couch or other object, and call your puppy to encourage her to find you. When she does, give her lots of praise and a yummy treat.
  • Variation: Play Ping Pong by having a partner play with you and take turns hiding. While the first person is rewarding the puppy for coming, the second person hides.

five weeks

This is such a fun age! These puppies are cuter every day! Their individual personalities are showing through. They’ve transformed from little guinea pigs who can’t see or hear to actual miniature dogs who run around and play and give kisses. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the short video clips on our Instagram story. I’m trying to share short videos there so you can see what the puppies are up to each day.

These puppies have started eating a mush of softened TLC puppy kibble mixed with fresh goat milk. Soon they’ll be chowing down on dry kibble, but for now while their teeth are coming in, the soften food makes for a perfect meal. Maple continues to nurse them throughout the day. The puppies trot about, exploring the world around them. They enjoy playing with the different toys in their pen, and they enjoy playing with each other, too. The pups don’t sit still for long, except for when they’re on your lap or sleeping, so pictures are challenging – unless they’re sleeping! In between their short bursts of energy, they still spend much of their time snoozing. If you sit on the floor, you’re sure to have a lap full of puppies! The puppies have had their toenails trimmed again, and they’ve also had their bottoms shaved with clippers. We’ve started locking them in crates overnight (with their buddies – no one is confined alone at this age), and they all hold their little poos until morning. Then, when we take them outside first thing in the morning, it’s rewarding to see the whole group all pottying at the same time! We’ve had wonderful weather for the puppies to spend time enjoying the great outdoors, although we’re careful about how long the puppies are outside in one session since it’s been pretty hot. The pups have also been on two road trips this week where they’ve been able to explore new environments and meet new people. We feel that it’s important for puppies to experience different environments starting from a young age, so we work hard to start that socialization during their time with us. When you take your puppy home, that responsibility passes onto you and then it’s your turn to continue the socialization process. Hopefully you’ve worked on a puppy experience plan like we talks about in puppy tip #2! It’s been a fun week for these little pups, and we’re thoroughly enjoying them.

Weekly Puppy Tip #6

Pick out and sign up for a puppy class – A puppy class is essential both for socialization and manners. Look for a class that emphasizes positive reinforcement, as learning & training should be a fun game at this point. Clicker training is a plus. This article from AKC gives some pointers about what to look for in a puppy class. Many dog training facilities will allow your new friend join their puppy class around 12 weeks of age, once she has received her second set of immunizations. Allison Camp from Pups Unleashed offers a local puppy class. She’ll be temperament testing the puppies in about 2 weeks and assisting with matching. Temperament testing always an exciting day!

We prefer in person puppy class over virtual hands down, but having online recourses is incredibly helpful, too. Timberidge Goldendoodles is excited to be partnering with Baxter & Bella. These online resources, virtual classes, and video training tips are an amazing option for every puppy owner – there are even a variety of resources to help you now as you prepare for your new furry family member. Plus membership is for a lifetime, so you can access Baxter & Bella’s tools repeatedly over the years ahead for each and every furry child that joins your family. 

Use the discount code TIMBERIDGE to save 25% when you join Baxter & Bella!

Here’s a short video from Baxter & Bella’s about how to train your puppy to respond positively the someone ringing your doorbell. You can take this same principle and apply it to a variety of other circumstances, such as teaching your puppy to walk calmly past another dog who is going crazy. You can find more free puppy training videos here. Remember, the best thing you can do to prepare for your new puppy is to prepare yourself!

six weeks

It’s been another busy week full of fun puppy adventures. The puppies have played outside A LOT! And it’s been another week of crazy weather here, so the puppies have practiced pottying outside in both rain and shine. This puppies have traveled several different locations besides our home this past week. It’s good for them to get used to playing in different locations/ new environments, and they’ve enjoyed exploring the new situations. We’re working hard to expose these pups to a variety of sights, sounds, smells, environments – and in just a few short weeks, it will be your turn to continue that socialization process with your new pup. Another new excitement of the week is that the puppies have officially started eating dry kibble. They have been eating TLC puppy food for some time now, but at first we moisten it and then gradually transition to completely dry. If you haven’t received an email from TLC, please let me know.

weekly puppy tip #7

Get ready to groom! – Your puppy has had her nails clipped and hair trimmed during her time with us, so she has already had her initial introduction to a lifetime of being groomed. Take her to the groomer for a puppy clip after her 16-week immunizations. The groomer will bathe her, trim the hair out of her eyes, give her a sanitary clip, and trim her nails. Since she will need regular grooming throughout her life, both she and the groomer will benefit if she becomes accustomed to being groomed from a young age, even before she’s ready for a full haircut. 

When should she have her first big girl haircut? The wavy adult coat will start replacing the soft, fluffy puppy coat around 5-6 months of age. You’ll notice the new hair coming in is kinkier than the pure fluff on top. Waiting to cut the hair until the adult coat makes its debut beneath the layers of puppy plush helps ensure that the adult coat remains soft. Many poodle groomers and poodle fanciers claim that shaving a poodle or goldendoodle down before her adult coat starts coming in could damage the adult coat, affecting the texture. While there isn’t any substantiated evidence that this is true, it’s worth avoiding just in case. That doesn’t mean that your puppy might not benefit from a puppy clip in the meantime! Don’t let your puppy’s hair get out of control! As aforementioned, take him to the groomer for a puppy clip after her 16-week immunizations. When the time comes, check out the grooming section on our website for a variety of goldendoodle haircut pictures. Learn more about your Goldendoodle puppy’s first trip to the groomer. We have a plethora of haircut resources under the “grooming” tab on the main menu bar.

Waiting until 6 months for the first full big girl clip does NOT mean you’re off the hook for grooming at home! You should regularly groom your puppy: brushing her hair, cleaning her ears, brushing her teeth, clipping her toenails, and checking her for any anomalies (i.e. ticks, cuts, etc.). You want your puppy to become accustomed to being brushed and handled all over from a young age. We HIGHLY recommend doing regular bonding/body handling exercises with your puppy (demonstrated in the video shared on weekly puppy tip #4). Goldendoodles are a breed that like routines (thanks to those poodle ancestors), so it’s nice to do bonding exercises every night just before your put your puppy in her crate for bed. It’s easy to incorporate different parts of grooming into your nightly bonding exercises, just doing a little here and a little there since young puppies don’t have the attention span for lots of grooming at once.

Here’s a quick video from Baxter & Bella giving you a safe method for helping your puppy become comfortable having the hair around her eyes trimmed. Your puppy is going to need those pesky little hairs trimmed out of her eyes throughout her life, so you’ll be thankful that you got her accustomed to that from a young age. Take this same principle and apply it to other aspects of grooming, such as nail trimming and teeth brushing. This method helps create positive emotional responses in your puppy towards grooming, which is exactly what you want! Baxter & Bella has other short helpful grooming related videos on their Instagram page (posted in October & November 2021).

vet check: August 4th

The puppies visited our friends at Hopewell Animal Hospital. I am please to report that all seven puppies are healthy! The pups received their first of three doses of the DHP vaccine. You should schedule an appointment with your vet for your pup to receive a second dose when she is 12 weeks old (around 09.08.22) weeks of age and third dose at 16 weeks of age (around 10.06.22). Your puppy’s birthday is June 23rd.

seven weeks

The puppies are so much fun! They bound around outside, finding things to chew and places to explore. They also sneak around the house, trying to investigate new places. We continue to take the puppies on new and different adventures. It’s fun to see their curiosity! The pups enjoy any new toy we throw their way, and they are still very fond of their slide and adventure box.

Be sure to pick up a special extra yummy chew that your puppy only gets during (daytime) crate time.

Aren’t these pups adorable? Now scroll back and look at their newborn pictures. Isn’t it marvelous that in just seven weeks they’ve transformed from little guinea pigs into gorgeous, fluffy puppies?!

weekly puppy tip #8

Fostering the children/dog relationship – Goldendoodles are family dogs by nature, but there are a few steps you can take to help set your puppy and your kids up for a lifetime of friendship:

1. When your puppy is sleeping, let her sleep – your puppy is growing & developing and she NEEDS that sleep. Teach your children to respect a sleeping puppy by not interrupting her. Your puppy’s crate should be her safe retreat. When she’s in her crate, allow her to enjoy safe, undisturbed quiet time- this doesn’t mean that you all need to tip toe quietly around when the puppies napping! It just means that when the puppy is napping, let her enjoy that peaceful sleep untouched and wake up on her own good time.
2. Involve your children in daily puppy care – allowing your children to participate in caring for the puppy will help grow the bond between them and their furry friend. It also helps the puppy learn associate good things with little people and helps her see the children as above her in the pack order. Younger children particularly love being helpers. Our kids enjoy (aka fight over) feeding the dogs, letting them out of their crates, opening the back door to let the dogs in/out, etc. We let them help brush the dogs with much supervision (remember, we want all puppy experiences to be POSITIVE!). Our children also love holding leashes on walks (children should only take your dog on a walk with adult supervision). If you don’t trust your puppy to not pull a young child over, you can attach two short leashes to one dog so both you & your child have a leash to hold. Be cognizant of your child’s age and maturity level. Older children can be more actively involved and younger children can be involved in smaller ways.
3. Encourage your children to play with the puppy – puppy nips and jumps can be intimidating for some children. Teaching children how to act calmly around a puppy and how to play intentional games such as fetch and educational games (see some suggestions under week 3) can help both the children and the puppy learn how to interact with each other. Explain to your children that your puppy isn’t trying to hurt them when she’s nipping – she’s asking them to play with her.
4. Include your children in puppy training – when you enroll your puppy in a puppy kindergarten class, ask about bringing your child along (assuming he’s old enough and mature enough to participate). Our children enjoy practicing sits and downs with our dogs, dolling out hotdog slivers to the eager participants. Our dogs think it’s great! Be sure to always supervise children/puppy training sessions.
5. Teach your children to respect the puppy – sometimes it’s challenging for children, especially young ones, to distinguish between their favorite stuffie and a real-life fluffy puppy. Many children need to be patiently taught to be gentle and kind with animals. “No hugging dogs” is a rule in our home because a preschooler bear hug around the neck is too much our small dogs (our dogs don’t mind but we’re afraid they might accidentally get hurt since they’re significantly smaller than the ones dolling out the hugs). If there are times when you aren’t able to supervise your children’s interaction with your puppy, it might be best (and safest) to put your puppy in her crate. Remember, that crate should be your puppy’s safe place. This article by AKC has more helpful tips about teaching children to respect dogs.
6. Establish a safe place for your dog, usually either a dog bed or crate. Teach your children that when the puppy is in her safe place, they need to let her alone and they may not touch her. Your puppy will learn that she can retreat to her safe place if she becomes overwhelmed with a situation or if she just needs a nap.

getting ready

Puppy supplies

We’ve created a puppy shopping list to guide you as you prepare to bring your new pup home! Go ahead and pick up a Snuggle Puppy (with a heartbeat) to bring with you on meet & greet day. If you have a 36″ metal crate, you’re welcome to leave that with us that on meet & greet day as well, and we’ll start getting your puppy used to her new future “bedroom.” (We have plenty of crates, so all of the puppies will get used to sleeping in a crate at night, so please don’t feel like you have to bring one. I do highly recommend sending a snuggle puppy though.)

Baxter & Bella: first 2 weeks with a new puppy

These are all short 1-3 minute videos that are helpful to watch. You’ll learn how to teach your puppy and get ideas for establishing good behaviors from day one. These videos show Amy Jensen of Baxter & Bella training Chili, her young goldendoodle puppy

• Puppy pen & day one crate introduction
• Impulse control
• Toy trade game, building a marker 
• Mat work & teaching your puppy to settle
• Teaching your puppy to sit to say “please”
• Settling in a crate, redirecting
• Come
• Keeping an eye on your puppy while you’re being productive & preventing resource guarding
• Helping your puppy enjoy being brushed
• Introducing a harness or therapy vest
• Walking on a leash
• “Drop it” command
• Example of a puppy-sized training session (training sessions should only be 1-2 minutes long for an 8-10 week old puppy)

If you’re eager to learn more, Baxter & Bella’s online resources, virtual classes, and video training tips are an amazing option for every puppy owner. Plus membership is for a lifetime, so you can access Baxter & Bella’s tools repeatedly over the years ahead for each and every furry child that joins your family. Use the discount code TIMBERIDGE to save 25% when you join Baxter & Bella!

If you plan to do service or therapy work with your puppy, the harness introduction and “touch” are both important to start early on. In addition, watch GoodWill or Facebook Marketplace to find assistive mobility assistive such as a cane, crutches, walker, wheel chair, etc. that your puppy may encounter during therapy visits. You’ll want to familiar your puppy with those items early on.

Puppy Culture: first 2 weeks with a new puppy

You will have to put the free course into your cart and check out. Much of this program you can just listen to without actually watching, so this is a great have this on hand while you’re driving. If you only have time to watch part of this course, I recommend watching: Class 1 part 2 about setting up your puppy’s spot at home and Class 2 part 1 about structuring your puppy’s day. Bringing your puppy home by Puppy Culture

Puppy-sized exercise

Puppy Culture explains why age appropriate exercise is critical for your puppy in this article. Also be sure to check out Puppy Culture’s exercise guideline poster and the AviDog (Good Dog) Fit For Life puppy exercise guidelines.

happy birthday: Thursday, April 14

Ivy & Moses are the proud parents of NINE squishy new babies: three girls and six boys. These little ones are absolutely precious. When first born, puppies depend completely on their mama, so we’re blessed that Ivy does such a great job caring for them. She nurses them almost constantly it seems and snuggles with them. How sweet are these faces? The pups are less than 48 hours old in the picture above.

At first puppies can’t yet walk. Their eyes and ears are closed. They can’t go to the bathroom on their own. And they can’t maintain their own body temperature. Fortunately God gave puppies a natural instinct to pile together for warmth, so they snuggle together in a giant puppy heap. And they also cuddling around Ivy as she snoozes contentedly, surrounded by her new family. EEGs have revealed that the brain activity of infant puppies is the same when asleep and awake. But these little pups are busy eating, growing, and developing. Ivy’s puppies twitch and pop in their sleep, as all healthy newborn puppies should. This activated sleep helps them build muscle tone. Hopefully you caught the video in the Instagram story of them all snuggled around Mama Ivy, sleeping the day away.

weekly puppy tip #1: nap time is essential!

Think about a napping place – The puppies spend most of their lives sleeping now, but did you know that your new furbaby is going to need lots of sleep when you bring her home, too? Puppies, just like small children, require naps throughout the day. When your puppy is sleeping, try to allow her to rest untouched (it’s okay for noisy life to carry on around her while she snoozes, but it’s best not to physically disturb her as much as possible). This may mean that you need to guide her to a different spot than the one she’s initially chosen. Puppy Culture estimates that an 8-10 week old puppy sleeps 3 hours and then is awake for 1 hour before going back down for another nap. AKC gives some helpful insight into the importance of puppy sleep:

Although puppies may seem like little bundles of energy, in fact, they sleep 15-20 hours a day. One minute your puppy may be a miniature tornado, and the next he’s fallen soundly asleep, almost mid-activity. Sleep is essential to healthy growth: during sleep his central nervous system, brain, immune system, and muscles are developing. All of that sleep also helps him rest up during growth spurts… household members, especially children, should leave your puppy alone while he is sleeping. Plan his day so that active time is followed by quiet time for sleep. He’ll most likely be ready for a nap after playtime or a walk, sleep for a while and then wake up ready for anything. Your puppy may nap every hour or so, sleeping from 30 minutes to as long as two hours. All of this sleep is perfectly normal.

Jan Reisen from the American Kennel Club (AKC)

You can read the rest of the article here.

one week

Our kids have worked hard picking out the perfect names for this adorable crew! (they started thinking about names well in advance of the puppies’ arrival). Here are the final name decisions:

Girls: Pumpkin, Diamond, and Mrs. Potts (from Beauty & the Beast)

Boys: Tonka, Springy (for springtime), Abu (from Aladdin), Chip (from Beautify & the Beast), Pretzel (from Pretzel by Margaret Rey), and Aslan (from Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe).

It’s hard to believe that these babies are already one week old! They have grown so much! These puppies may still seem incredibly small but in just 11 short days they’ve really packed on the pounds. These sweet little pumpkins continue to dedicate their entire lives to eating and sleeping – and it shows! They are fat little sausages with adorable wrinkles and rolls. Just look at that chunky little belly below! They have about doubled their birth weights, and all weigh well over 1lb now. And all this growing means that they’ve graduated to collars! We use break-free collars to keep our littles safe from the risk of strangulation, but these special safety collars feel like “normal” collars to the puppies, so they’ll go home used to the feel of wearing a collar.

They twitch and pop involuntarily during their sleep, developing muscle tone for the near future. This phenomenon is known as “activated sleep.” In a few short weeks, these rolly polly puppies will be bouncing around playfully. Their legs, while still wobbly, have already gotten stronger and the puppies wobble around on them instead of just army crawling as they did initially.

weekly puppy tip #2

Make a puppy experience plan – Compile a list of places you want to take your puppy and experiences you want your puppy to encounter. Any day now, these little eyes will be ready to soak up the sites, and we’ll now start introducing the puppies to items that differ in appearance. We have a thought out socialization plan, working hard to expose your puppy to as much as possible during her time with us. When you take your puppy home, that responsibility then shifts to you as you continue the socialization process. Exposing your puppy to new people, situations, sounds, smells, textures, etc. is extremely important. Give your new puppy a few days to adjust to her new home and new routine. Then begin giving her short, positive experiences (yummy treats make everything more positive!). Don’t try to do too much in one day, as you don’t want to overwhelm or stress her. Start developing ideas of how to want to socialize your new puppy. 

Your goal is for your puppy to meet a minimum of 100 different people by the time she’s six months old. Dr. Ian Dunbar, a puppy socialization expert, raises the bar even higher by recommending that puppies meet 100+ people during the first month at home. If you hope to visit a local nursing home or hospital when your puppy gets older, secure some crutches, walkers or wheelchairs to expose your puppy to at home. Meeting people is just one component of socialization. Think about outdoor experiences that you and your puppy can safely enjoy together. Consider what predictable dogs you can introduce your puppy to (dogs who are predictable, friendly, healthy, and will model good behavior for your pup). Remember, adult dogs aren’t always fond of puppies so be sure to monitor them together. Do you know anyone with a woods or creek where you can take your puppy for a short romp? Remember, you want every experience to be POSITIVE (i.e. bring yummy treats and hand out the praise). Making a plan now, before you bring your puppy home, will help ensure that you follow through with a variety of positive exposures once you have your new little fluff ball at your side. 

Check out AviDog’s free e-book for more ideas about what to add to your puppy experience plan. Baxter & Bella also has some great ideas for socializing your puppy.

two weeks

Hello world! The puppies’ eye have just started opening over the last few days. It’s so fun to see them looking back at us. Eye opening is a process that doesn’t happen all in one day. Don’t they look much more like little dogs than they did last week? The puppies are still in a calm, quiet environment. Soon they’ll be ready for the chaos of our main living area but not quite yet. They get around their whelping box fairly quickly on wobbly legs, and it’s fun to see them attempting to walk instead of belly crawl.

Aren’t they getting cuter and cuter each week?! These sweet dumplings are getting so big! The puppies continue to enjoy nursing regularly. It’s a crazy, active puppy pile as they all search for the perfect milk tap. Once the milk starts flowing, they all settle down and enjoy the delicious warmness filling their chunky bellies. Their happy tails tell us that they enjoy nursing.

We have trimmed the puppies’ toenails for a second time now. Toenails grow quickly. Be ready to trim your new pup’s nails every few weeks when she joins your family.

weekly puppy tip #3: age appropriate exercise

Glance over Puppy Culture’s exercise chart. Familiarize yourself with what sorts of activities are appropriate for your puppy at different stages of development. You want to give your puppy a variety of unique positive experiences, but your puppy is still growing & developing, so you don’t want to push your puppy too far. For instance, climbing up one to two stairs is an appropriate challenge but climbing a flight of stairs is not a good idea for a young puppy (a study done on 500 dogs showed that puppies allowed to climb a flight of stairs before 3 months old were more likely to develop hip dysplasia). Remember, free running and playing is a great option because your puppy can rest whenever she feels inclined to do so. If you’d like to read more about puppy exercise, check out AviDog’s puppy exercise guidelines. This article from AKC also gives some helpful puppy exercise tips.

three weeks

These puppies are so stinking precious! And they’re incredibly chunky! In addition to nursing, the puppies have started drinking goats milk from a dish. They think it’s pretty delicious! The pups are still figuring out how eating out of a dish works, and it’s adorable to watch them lick the milk off of each other afterwards. Eating from a bowl is a bit of a messy endeavor at this age! Despite their rotund bellies, the pups are beginning to take wobbly steps.

The puppies have started listening to their habituation soundtrack, which helps acclimate them to different sounds. We also give them different objects to explore each day. The pups still spend the majority of their time snoozing, but they’re also starting to play with each other. Their clumsy play right now looks like it’s happening in slow motion.

weekly puppy tip #4: be the leader your puppy wants you to be

It’s essential that you establish yourself as the pack leader. Your puppy doesn’t want to be in charge – that’s a scary place to be! Your puppy wants to look to you as the leader, but you have to show yourself as worth of the role by being the leader (this also helps set your kids apart as ranking higher in the pack than your new pup). Some easy ways to establish your leadership include:

• Sit down with your puppy each night before bed and briefly touch your puppy EVERYWHERE. Kneel on the floor with your puppy sitting between your legs. Start by petting your puppy’s head and tell him “head, head.” Then check his mouth, telling him “teeth, teeth,” and look inside his ears telling him “ear, ears.” Briefly go over your puppy from nose to tail in this fashion. This helps establish that you’re allowed to touch your puppy anywhere and everywhere. (see the video below)
• Set boundaries so there is at least one place in your home that your dog isn’t allowed to go in your home (i.e. not allowed to jump on your bed, not allowed to sit on a particular couch or not allowed into a certain room). 
• Teach you puppy to sit and wait for you to walk out the front door before her and give her the “okay” before she is permitted to walk through it. If you’ve been consistent, your puppy will offer a sit and wait for a release word (i.e. “okay”) before coming inside by 3 months old. When she’s old enough to start walking freely up and down stairs, teach her to wait for you to finish climbing/descending the stairs before she comes. 
• Encourage your puppy sit and wait for you to give her the “okay” before she is allowed to approach her food bowl. Periodically pick up your puppy’s food bowl while she’s eating, reward her with a yummy treat, and return the food bowl. (we’ll talk about the Toy Trade Game and other educational games you can play with your puppy next week).
• Teach your puppy to do a long down during meal times. Buy a soft rug or bed and teach your puppy to go lay on it on command. We have our own adult dogs lay on a rug in a down stay during dinner. Maple was doing a down stay along side them at 6 months old for the entire length of our meal – which means your puppy can do it at a young age, too!

four weeks

I can’t believe how quickly these babies are growing up! The biggest news of the week is that they moved downstairs AND they’ve been outside! At first pups needed a calm, quiet environment without too much stimulation. But now they’re ready for the chaos that exists in the main part of our home! The pups moved into a small puppy area earlier in the week and we have been gradually expanding their puppy play yard. These puppies have had so much fun exploring everything! We continue to give them new toys to spark their curiosity. And we continue to snuggle them! They shower us with kisses, and we shower them with kisses, too! They’ve already been outside multiple times in the past week. We’re thankful for the warm weather that allows these little ones to enjoy the great outdoors. It’s always great to see the little pees & poos happening outside (instead of in my house!). The puppies still sleep a lot and tire quickly, but they also have fun playing and exploring outside. These pups have had their toenails trimmed at least twice, they’ve had their tiny bottoms shaved with the clippers, they’ve sniffed noses with some other dogs besides their mama (Abria is enjoying her auntie role)… So much has happened this week! The growing and developing puppies do in the first four weeks is absolutely outstanding! In just one month, these pups have gone from being unable to walk to playing with each other. In just one month, they’ve gone from having eyes & ears that are shut to curiously exploring the world around them. In just one month, they’ve gone from being entirely dependent on Ivy to using a potty area in their pen, interacting with each other, and giving us kisses! It’s so fun to watch all of that growing and developing unfold. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying the Instagram story videos of the puppies playing tug-of-war with a blanket, checking out the puppy slide, walking through a tunnel, and so forth. We love the privilege of giving these little ones new experiences. And our kids love the opportunity to snuggle and kiss on these babies – they’ll join your family already very familiar with being loved by tiny humans.

The puppies are still enjoy mama Ivy’s delicious, nutritious milk. I can’t imagine nursing a litter of nine babies! It doesn’t look like fun, but Ivy still nurses of all her sweet babies. It’s a crazy chaotic scramble of puppies as everyone climbs over, under, and on top of everyone else trying to secure a milk tap before anyone can snag it. It’s easy to tell when the milk starts flowing because the pups suddenly calm and you can hear their little gulps as they melt into a moment of pure milk enjoyment. The puppies have also started eating moistened TLC puppy kibble, and they think it’s pretty tasty too.  Soon they’ll be chowing down on dry kibble, but for now while their teeth are coming in, the soften food makes for a perfect meal. Your little one will be accustomed to eating TLC puppy food. You should be receiving an email directly from TLC in the next one to two weeks. In our weekly puppy tip below, you’ll learn about the trade game. Once your new fluffball is adjusted to your home, you can periodically use your puppy’s dinner bowl to play the game, working on preventing resource guarding. Taking a few minutes to work with your puppy while she’s young can go a long way in preventing unwanted behavior. Pick up a pack of hot dogs or other delicious treat and occasionally pick up your pup’s bowl while she’s eating, exchanging his kibble for a sliver of hot dog, and then returning his food bowl to her (see the trade game from weekly puppy tip #5).

weekly puppy tip #5: Get ready to play educational games with your puppy!

Did you know that there are fun games you can play with your puppy that teach him beneficial skills? It’s great to incorporate regular educational games into your puppy’s routine, so read through these suggestions, add any needed supplies to your puppy shopping list, and get ready for puppy playtime!

• Ball On The Wall – Encourages retrieving
  • Supplies: A ball that your puppy can carry in her mouth
  • How to play: Sit on the floor about 1-5’ from a wall. Put your legs in a “V” and sit facing the wall with your puppy between you and the wall. Toss the ball at the wall, encouraging your puppy to go after it. Give your puppy lots of praise when she brings the ball back! 
  • Variation: Once you’ve mastered Ball On The Wall, try playing retrieve in a hallway with all the doors closed (so your puppy can’t run away with the ball).
• Toy Trade – Prevents resource guarding
  • Supplies: A toy that your puppy likes but doesn’t highly value and a high value treat
  • How to play: Briefly play with your puppy using the toy. Ask your puppy for the toy by offering her a high value treat. Reward & praise her for giving you the toy, and give the toy back to her as soon as she finishes chewing. Gradually work on having her give you objects of higher value (i.e. a bone).
  • Variation: Work on teaching your puppy the command “give” and ask her to drop the toy/bone on command in exchange for the high value treat.
• Hide & Seek – Encourages recall
  • Supplies: Yummy treats
  • How to play: Run away from your puppy, hide behind a corner, tree, couch or other object, and call your puppy to encourage her to find you. When she does, give her lots of praise and a yummy treat.
  • Variation: Play Ping Pong by having a partner play with you and take turns hiding. While the first person is rewarding the puppy for coming, the second person hides.

five weeks

Five weeks is such a fun age! The puppies are so lively, and it’s great fun to introduce them to new experiences. We take them outside multiple times a day now, and they do a good job going potty outdoors – for the most part 🙂 We’ve started locking them in crates overnight (with friends – no one is confined alone at this age), and they all hold their little poos until morning. Then, when we take them outside first thing in the morning, it’s rewarding to see nine pups all pottying at the same time! We’ve had wonderful weather for the puppies to spend time enjoying the great outdoors. They’ve also experienced going out to potty in the rain this week too. But seriously, how adorable are these faces?!

These puppies are cuter every day! Their individual personalities are showing through. They’ve transformed from little guinea pigs who can’t see or hear to actual miniature dogs who run around and play and give kisses. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the short video clips on our Instagram story. I’m trying to share short videos on most days there so you can see what the puppies are up to.

As you can tell from the pictures, the puppies went on a road trip today (they’ve actually gone on two road trips this week). They had so much fun exploring the rocks and pond perimeter! We feel that it’s important for puppies to experience different environments starting from a young age, so we work hard to start that socialization during their time with us. When you take your puppy home, that responsibility passes onto you and then it’s your turn to continue the socialization process. Hopefully you’ve worked on a puppy experience plan like we talks about in puppy tip #2!

Weekly Puppy Tip #6

Pick out and sign up for a puppy class – A puppy class is essential both for socialization and manners. Look for a class that emphasizes positive reinforcement, as learning & training should be a fun game at this point. Clicker training is a plus. This article from AKC gives some pointers about what to look for in a puppy class. Many dog training facilities will allow your new friend join their puppy class around 12 weeks of age, once she has received her second set of immunizations. Allison Camp from Pups Unleashed offers a local puppy class. She’ll be temperament testing the puppies in about 2 weeks and assisting with matching. Temperament testing always an exciting day!

We prefer in person puppy class over virtual hands down, but having online recourses is incredibly helpful, too. Timberidge Goldendoodles is excited to be partnering with Baxter & Bella. These online resources, virtual classes, and video training tips are an amazing option for every puppy owner. Plus membership is for a lifetime, so you can access Baxter & Bella’s tools repeatedly over the years ahead for each and every furry child that joins your family. 

Use the discount code TIMBERIDGE to save 25% when you join Baxter & Bella!

Here’s a short video from Baxter & Bella’s about how to train your puppy to respond positively the someone ringing your doorbell. You can take this same principle and apply it to a variety of other circumstances, such as teaching your puppy to walk calmly past another dog who is going crazy. You can find more free puppy training videos here. Remember, the best thing you can do to prepare for your new puppy is to prepare yourself!

six weeks

It’s been another busy week full of fun puppy adventures. The puppies have played outside A LOT! And it’s been another week of crazy weather here, so the puppies have practiced pottying outside in both rain and shine. This puppy video shows them at three different locations besides our home this past week. It’s good for them to get used to playin gin different locations/ new environments, and they’ve enjoyed exploring the new situations. We’re working hard to expose these pups to a variety of sights, sounds, smells, environments – and in just a few short weeks, it will be your turn to continue that socialization process with your new pup. Another new excitement of the week is that the puppies have officially started eating dry kibble (as you’ll see in the video). They have been eating TLC puppy food for some time now, but at first we moisten it and then gradually transition to completely dry. If you haven’t received an email from TLC, please let me know.

weekly puppy tip #7

Get ready to groom! – Your puppy has had her nails clipped and hair trimmed during her time with us, so she has already had her initial introduction to a lifetime of being groomed. Take her to the groomer for a puppy clip after her 16-week immunizations. The groomer will bathe her, trim the hair out of her eyes, give her a sanitary clip, and trim her nails. Since she will need regular grooming throughout her life, both she and the groomer will benefit if she becomes accustomed to being groomed from a young age, even before she’s ready for a full haircut. 

When should she have her first big girl haircut? The wavy adult coat will start replacing the soft, fluffy puppy coat around 5-6 months of age. You’ll notice the new hair coming in is kinkier than the pure fluff on top. Waiting to cut the hair until the adult coat makes its debut beneath the layers of puppy plush helps ensure that the adult coat remains soft. Many poodle groomers and poodle fanciers claim that shaving a poodle or goldendoodle down before her adult coat starts coming in could damage the adult coat, affecting the texture. While there isn’t any substantiated evidence that this is true, it’s worth avoiding just in case. That doesn’t mean that your puppy might not benefit from a puppy clip in the meantime! Don’t let your puppy’s hair get out of control! As aforementioned, take him to the groomer for a puppy clip after her 16-week immunizations. When the time comes, check out the grooming section on our website for a variety of goldendoodle haircut pictures. Learn more about your Goldendoodle puppy’s first trip to the groomer. We have a plethora of haircut resources under the “grooming” tab on the main menu bar.

Waiting until 6 months for the first full big girl clip does NOT mean you’re off the hook for grooming at home! You should regularly groom your puppy: brushing her hair, cleaning her ears, brushing her teeth, clipping her toenails, and checking her for any anomalies (i.e. ticks, cuts, etc.). You want your puppy to become accustomed to being brushed and handled all over from a young age. We HIGHLY recommend doing regular bonding/body handling exercises with your puppy (demonstrated in the video shared on weekly puppy tip #4). Goldendoodles are a breed that like routines (thanks to those poodle ancestors), so it’s nice to do bonding exercises every night just before your put your puppy in her crate for bed. It’s easy to incorporate different parts of grooming into your nightly bonding exercises, just doing a little here and a little there since young puppies don’t have the attention span for lots of grooming at once.

seven weeks

getting ready

Puppy supplies

We’ve created a puppy shopping list to guide you as you prepare to bring your new pup home! Go ahead and pick up a Snuggle Puppy (with a heartbeat) to bring with you on meet & greet day. If you have a crate, you’re welcome to leave that with us that on meet & greet day as well and we’ll start getting your puppy used to her new future “bedroom.”

Baxter & Bella: first 2 weeks with a new puppy

These are all short 1-3 minute videos that are helpful to watch. You’ll learn how to teach your puppy and get ideas for establishing good behaviors from day one. These videos show Amy Jensen training Chili, her young goldendoodle puppy

• Puppy pen & day one crate introduction
• Impulse control
• Toy trade game, building a marker 
• Mat work & teaching your puppy to settle
• Teaching your puppy to sit to say “please”
• Settling in a crate, redirecting
• Come
• Keeping an eye on your puppy while you’re being productive & preventing resource guarding
• Helping your puppy enjoy being brushed
• Introducing a harness or therapy vest
• Walking on a leash
• “Drop it” command
• Example of a puppy-sized training session (training sessions should only be 1-2 minutes long for an 8-10 week old puppy)

If you’re eager to learn more, Baxter & Bella’s online resources, virtual classes, and video training tips are an amazing option for every puppy owner. Plus membership is for a lifetime, so you can access Baxter & Bella’s tools repeatedly over the years ahead for each and every furry child that joins your family. Use the discount code TIMBERIDGE to save 25% when you join Baxter & Bella!

If you plan to do service or therapy work with your puppy, the harness introduction and “touch” are both important to start early on. In addition, watch GoodWill or Facebook Marketplace to find assistive mobility assistive such as a cane, crutches, walker, wheel chair, etc. that your puppy may encounter during therapy visits. You’ll want to familiar your puppy with those items early on.

Puppy Culture: first 2 weeks with a new puppy

You will have to put the free course into your cart and check out. Much of this program you can just listen to without actually watching, so this is a great have this on hand while you’re driving. If you only have time to watch part of this course, I recommend watching: Class 1 part 2 about setting up your puppy’s spot at home and Class 2 part 1 about structuring your puppy’s day.Bringing your puppy home by Puppy Culture

Happy first birthday to Teddy, Lily, Riley, Rosie, Obi, Leo, Chanel & Juno!

Teddy

Teddy has become quite a love. He loves to sit in my lap and chew his bone. He loves balls and go fetch but the best thing of all is to rip out all the stuffing and find the squeaker!! He is truly a wonderful companion and has a great personality!! Teddy loves to swim, and he also loves the snow.

Lily

Lily is the perfect puppy.  We are thrilled with her! She happily goes to her crate when we go to bed and not a peep out of her until we get up, and she has never had an accident in the house. Lily’s favorite toy is her pink ball. She also loves going on car rides and never wants the car to leave without her. We absolutely love Lily!

Riley

Riley is such a sweetheart!! He goes with me everywhere, and I always get complimented on how well he behaves and how calm he is and of course how cute he is! I think his favorite thing to do is play with his brother Walter (our cat). You usually don’t find one without the other.  He loves to go on walks and insists on greeting everyone we pass. If he sees someone walking in front or behind us he will sit still and wait for them to come near us. He loves seeing all the dogs too and gets so excited when they show they want to play back with him. He probably makes me laugh the most when he plays with our cat Walter. Riley likes to hide on the side of a doorway and when Walter walks into the room  he jumps out and they start chasing each other. Walter will chase Riley and he’ll run as fast as he can and then he’ll stop and start chasing Walter. During the holidays,  Walter had the advantage and he would hide under our Christmas tree and sneak attack Riley as he walked past him. When Riley is bored he’ll just walk in front of me and put his face on the coffee table and just look at me. That’s his way of asking to play and if I ignore him he does the quietest  sound to get my attention. He loves his yak chew and his mini football with a squeaker in it.  He carries it around and will come up to us and  just squeak it over and over until we throw it. He likes to play fetch. He also loves the snow.  I bought him a K9 top coat to keep off the snowballs and we go out in the snow everyday.  He really is just a great dog. Our groomer says he’s the one she looks forward to grooming because he is so chill. Our dog sitter, who was also his trainer, loves to watch him and takes him shopping with her. He always gets a really good report. Riley is 24lbs. Thanks for raising such amazing puppies!! 

Rosie

Rosie loves to run (and is crazy fast), play hide & seek, chase after any toys, and takes her role of looking out the window very seriously ☺️ More than anything though, she loves to give kisses. She makes us laugh by “booping” everything with her nose, getting excited when we walk back into the room after being gone 1 minute, and climbing on the back of our couch/chairs like a cat. 

Obi

Obi’s our best bud. He loves to cuddle and play chase. He loves going to the dog park and making new friends, and he’s a sucker for a car ride (doesn’t hurt that he gets cookies from the teachers in the school pick-up line everyday). 

Leo

Leo has the perfect personality. He is sweet and cuddly, but also playful and full of energy. He brings us so much joy! He loves his yard since we put up a fence and burying his bones seems to be a new hobby of his. One thing we’ve noticed is that he does not discriminate with his toys. He plays with each one equally- which is part of his ever- loving personality to shower everyone in the room with attention! He loves hiking, going for walks, and also cuddling up to watch TV at the end of a long day. We love him to pieces. 

Chanel

Chanel at 1 year old is now 28 lbs of pure joyful energy. She enjoys traveling and road-trips most of all. She’s now been to New York, Chicago, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee along with her home state of Ohio. She’s most happy when she’s outside on a walk or hike. Chanel will fly into the car any chance she gets knowing it means meeting new people or doggy playmates. In January she even added a sister from her parents Maple and Boaz that is now her every day playmate and best friend. Although there are times when little sister Chloe is really annoying and Chanel just looks at her parents for assistance when Chloe steals her toy. She’s the biggest cuddler now that she has to share time with her sister. All in all Chanel has been the easiest and best we’ve ever had and brings joy to everyone she meets. No better dog than a Timberridge golden doodle!

Juno

Juno is very sweet. She loves everybody, likes our walks every morning and afternoon, and has done a couple of bike rides with me, which she also really likes. She is a big hugger and cuddler. She likes to sleep on top of my head or on the pillow right next to me. When she wants something she talks to us with intermittent small barks to get what she wants. It’s really pretty funny. She likes the water but hasn’t really done much swimming. Mostly waded up to her belly.