🐾 Puppy Age Checklist – Is Now the Right Time?
This one-page checklist helps potential puppy buyers decide whether now is the right time to welcome a Cavoodle into their life.
🏡 Lifestyle & Schedule
- Do I have enough time each day for feeding, toilet training, and play?
- Can I take 2 or 3 weeks off work to settle the pup in and do the 3 times a day feeding and socialisation process required?
- Am I home often enough to prevent loneliness and separation anxiety?
- Can I commit to consistent routines for the next 12–15 years?
👨👩👧 Family & Household Readiness
- Is everyone in the house on board with getting a puppy?
- Are my kids/pets ready for a new family member?
- What size and age of puppy best works with the age of my children?
- Do I have safe spaces for the puppy to rest, play, and explore?
💰 Financial Preparedness
- Am I ready for the full cost of puppy ownership (purchase, food, vet care, grooming, training)?
- Do I have a budget for emergency care if something unexpected happens?
🧠 Breeder & Training Support
- Am I choosing a breeder who does proper enrichment, training, and socialisation during 6–16 weeks? (Read what this should be)
- Will my breeder support me after I take my puppy home?
⏳ Timing & Patience
- Do I have the energy and patience for toilet training, chewed shoes, and interrupted sleep?
- Would an older, partially trained puppy be a better fit right now?
✅ Your Next Step
If you answered YES to most of these, now might be the perfect time to welcome your Cavoodle puppy home!
📊 Pros & Cons by Age Category
🐾 Puppies at 8–10 Weeks
Pros:
- Early bonding during the critical socialisation window. This is not nearly as important if your puppy comes from a breeder that ensure bonding with humans and other dogs is already occurring.
- Easier to shape behaviour and routines from the start.
- Quicker integration into your household’s rhythm.
- “Blank slate” for training and habits.
Cons:
- Requires more hands-on work for toilet training and night waking.
- Higher risk of separation anxiety if left alone too soon.
- More chewing, biting, and mischief during the first months.
🐾 Puppies 12 Weeks and Older
Pros:
- Often sleeping longer at night.
- If you have chosen a professional breeder then they will have been started on toilet training, crate training, and basic commands.
- More confident thanks to extra socialisation with litter and breeder.
- Slightly more robust immune system after vaccinations at age appropriate ages.
Cons:
- Some habits (good or bad) may already be forming if you have chosen a breeder not capable of understanding how to avoid this.
- Slightly shorter bonding window, so you need to be intentional about connection.
- May take a bit longer to adapt to a new home compared to a younger puppy.
Final Thoughts
Are you choosing a breeder who does proper enrichment, training, and socialisation during 6–16 weeks? (Read what this should be)
What a Modern Professional Breeder Should Be Doing
If you want a puppy who grows into a confident, resilient, and well-adjusted adult dog, it takes more than just feeding and housing them for 8 weeks. A good breeder is not just a caretaker — they are the puppy’s first trainer, socialisation coach, and emotional guide. Here’s what you should be asking breeders about before you commit.
If you are, then take advantage of their knowledge and skills and allow them to raise your puppy to an older age.
Kareema
Healing Energy Animals
Kareema is the owners of Healing Energy Animals where devil dogs, horrible horses and crazy cats are turned into perfect pets using Relationship Animal Training and over 50 years of experience training a wide variety of animals.
Healing Energy Animals provides owners and pet professionals assistance with with common pet behavior training, feeding and grooming issues such as barking, escaping, scratching, aggression and fleas. Kareema consults and writes widely on a range of pet care issues for owners and also assists pet care professionals in setting up and growing their businesses by the provision of customer handling advice, sales and marketing strategies and up to date product information that allows for the differentiation of their pet care business from their competitors.
Healing Energy Animals is an Australian business but operates worldwide via the provision of virtual services.
