The Ultimate Puppy Training Guide for Doodles
Most puppy training advice wasn't written for families raising a doodle. This is.
Stop the biting, reduce the crate crying and help your doodle learn to settle — with a simple 30-day plan built around doodle behaviour and real family life.
Get the guide — £37
80-page guide + 30-day plan + Kids Calm & Train Pack · Instant access
Sound familiar?
You imagined a calm family puppy. This doesn't feel like that.
- The biting seems to be worse with the children — sleeves, trouser legs and little hands become irresistible the moment they start moving.
- The crate started with whining and ended in screaming — so now you're sleeping beside it, leaving the door open, or wondering whether you're making things worse.
- Your doodle follows you from room to room — and the second there's a baby gate or closed door between you, the crying starts.
- Every evening your sweet puppy turns into a tiny land shark — zooming, grabbing clothes, biting and ignoring everything you've taught them.
- You've tried yelping, saying "no", ignoring and redirecting — sometimes it stops the biting for thirty seconds, but nothing actually changes.
- You've tried more walks and more play to tire them out — only to somehow end up with an even more frantic puppy by 5pm.
And quietly, you've started wondering: is this normal doodle puppy behaviour… or am I accidentally making it worse?
You're not dealing with six separate problems.
Biting, following, crate crying, zoomies, barking and struggling to settle are usually driven by the same handful of things:
- Arousal
- Tiredness
- Frustration
- Attachment
- Skills your puppy hasn't learned yet
Understand what's driving the behaviour, and you can stop reacting to each new problem — and start teaching your doodle what to do instead.
Why doodles
Why does ordinary puppy advice sometimes make things worse?
Your doodle isn't being difficult. Doodles are crosses, not one uniform breed, and many of them combine traits that make puppyhood feel unusually intense:
- Highly people-focused. Following you everywhere becomes a habit fast.
- Quick learners. Which means they learn the things you didn't mean to teach just as quickly.
- Easily over-aroused. Biting, zoomies and apparently mad behaviour often mean your puppy needs less stimulation, not more.
- Sensitive to your reaction. Shouting "no!" during biting can turn you into part of the game.
- Strongly attached. Independence usually has to be taught deliberately, in tiny steps.
That's why this guide doesn't start with obedience. It starts with understanding what's driving the behaviour.
The framework
The CALM Doodle Method
Four principles that hold whatever mix you've got.
- C
Calm the environment
Stop the chaos being rehearsed. Sleep, distance, gates and safe zones come before you ask for any self-control.
- A
Anticipate needs
Toilet, rest, chewing, food, movement and a predictable system come before obedience.
- L
Learn their signals
Spot tiredness, stress, excitement and frustration early, so you act before the behaviour escalates.
- M
Make calm rewarding
Reinforce settling, four paws on the floor, choosing a toy, checking in and coping alone.
The method in one question: before correcting a behaviour, ask what need, emotion or missing skill is underneath it.
Client results
What doodle families say about the guide
Real feedback from puppy owners using the method at home.
It finally gave us a plan to follow.
Thank you so much, this guide has been so helpful. Been going out for variable intervals; I did 5 mins earlier today and came back to see him just sitting patiently and quietly. It was so sweet, and going to try 20 or so soon.
It helped us understand what was actually driving the behaviour.
I'd read so much puppy advice online that I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing anymore. The guide helped us understand why our doodle was behaving the way he was, and gave us practical things we could actually do at home.
The routines made such a difference to our evenings.
We thought our puppy needed more exercise because he became completely wild in the evenings. The guide helped us recognise when he was actually overtired and change his routine. Having a plan for those difficult parts of the day has made things feel so much more manageable.
We finally knew what to do about the biting.
The biting was one of the hardest parts for us, particularly with the children. The guide gave us one consistent way to respond rather than everyone trying something different. It made puppy life feel much less chaotic.
I wish I'd had this before we brought our puppy home.
What I loved about the guide was that it wasn't just training commands. It covered the things we were actually struggling with at home — biting, settling, sleep, independence, and getting everyone in the family responding in the same way.
These are individual experiences from families I've worked with. Every puppy and every household is different, and progress depends on your dog, your consistency and how much of the family is on board.
What this includes
What you get
10-Minute Quick Start
Know exactly what to do today, even if today is already chaotic.
Your Doodle Profile
Understand your own puppy's attachment, arousal, sensitivity and frustration tolerance.
CALM Routines
Sleep, the witching hour, settling, and a daily system that survives real family schedules.
Independence & Crate Plan
A nine-rung ladder from settling beside you to coping with a real absence.
The BITE Reset
One consistent response to biting that everyone in the family can use.
Your 30-Day Roadmap
One clear priority each week, instead of trying everything at once.
Plus
School-run plan · 60-second games · toilet training · recall · loose lead · socialisation · cooperative handling · Kids Calm & Train Pack · trackers and worksheets.
Who wrote this
Meet Sara
- IMDT accredited dog trainer
- Force-free methods throughout
- Specialist in doodles and family puppies
- Featured on BBC Morning Live
My children were two and four when we brought Lenny, our cavapoochon, home. It was joyful, and it was chaotic. He bit the children, barked when he was separated from us, and found every gap in our routine.
That experience changed the direction of my work. I trained as a force-free trainer, became IMDT accredited, and built this guide around real family life: school runs, work calls, tired evenings and clever, sensitive puppies.
When BBC Morning Live covered doodle dilemmas, they asked me on to talk about training doodle cross breeds — which is the question this guide answers.
30-Day Trainer Support Promise
Still struggling after 30 days? Email me.
Follow the plan. If you're still struggling after 30 days, send me your question and I'll personally tell you where I'd focus next. Not a chatbot, not a link to a blog post — me, looking at your own puppy.
Still stuck after 30 days?
Send me your question
One payment. Instant download. Yours to keep.
Before you buy
Questions people ask
How old should my puppy be?
It's written from the first 72 hours through to adolescence. If your dog is older and the same problems are happening, the methods still work — they just take longer.
Is it written, or are there pictures showing me what to do?
Both. It's a written guide, but the training sections are illustrated with step-by-step photographs, so you can see what each stage should actually look like — the crate work, the settle mat, guiding into a sit — rather than trying to picture it from a description.
It's designed to be read in short pieces on your phone, or printed for the fridge. Most parents don't have a spare hour to watch anything.
Do I have to read it cover to cover?
No. Start with the 10-Minute Quick Start, then jump to whichever part matches the problem in front of you.
Is this right for my dog?
It's for doodle puppies in family homes, and it covers biting, crate work, separation, settling and life skills. It isn't the right thing if you want a perfectly obedient puppy in a weekend, or if you're looking for corrections, sprays or shock collars — that's not how I work.
And if your dog is already panicking, guarding food or possessions, or biting hard enough to break skin, please don't rely on a guide. That needs an individual assessment and a vet check first. There's a page inside on exactly when to get in-person help.
What do the children get out of it?
There's a whole bonus pack for them: the Amber traffic-light system so they can read what the puppy is saying, six printable game cards, and a family agreement everyone signs. Adults stay responsible for supervision — children take part, they don't supervise.
When will I get it?
Straight away. As soon as you've paid, an email arrives with your download link — usually within a minute. Save the PDF to your phone and it's there whenever you need it, no login, no app, nothing to remember.
If it hasn't come through after a few minutes, have a look in your junk folder. Still nothing? Email me and I'll send it over myself.
Ready for a calmer house?
Thirty days from now you could still be googling at midnight, or you could have a system, a plan, and a family who all respond the same way.
Get the guide — £3780-page guide + 30-day plan + Kids Calm & Train Pack · Instant access