Best treats for 8-week-old Toy Poodle puppy

A brand new 8-week-old Toy Poodle — congratulations, and good timing to think about treats right away. The most effective training treats are pea-sized, soft enough to eat instantly, smelly enough to hold attention, and more exciting than regular food. At 8 weeks your puppy's teeth and stomach are both very delicate, so size and texture matter as much as flavour. What kind of early training are you starting with — name recall, toilet training, crate settling? And has your vet or breeder flagged anything about diet so far?

That's exactly the right focus for week one. For a Toy Poodle at 8 weeks you're talking about a very small dog — adult weight probably under 4kg — so treats need to be tiny even by normal training standards. Soft is non-negotiable at this age; hard biscuits are out entirely. What does she weigh roughly right now, and is she eating a specific puppy food already? That helps me make sure the treat I suggest won't throw off her nutrition.

Perfect — Royal Canin Toy Puppy is a complete food so her nutrition is well covered, which means treats are purely for training and you just need to keep the total volume very low. My clear recommendation is Wagg Puppy Training Treats. They're specifically formulated for puppies, soft enough to break apart with your fingers if you want them even smaller than they come, and they're low in fat so you can use quite a few in a session without guilt. The flavour is meaty enough to genuinely excite a young dog, and they're sized for small breeds — no choking risk, no chewing required, she'll take one and stay focused. For a 900g Toy Poodle pup, pinch each one in half to start. Keep sessions to two or three minutes maximum at this age — she'll hit a wall fast.

At her size and age, I'd cap it at around 10 to 15 treat pieces per day total, and that's across all sessions combined. If you're doing three short training moments a day — name, crate, recall — that's roughly 4 to 5 pieces each. Because she's eating Royal Canin three times a day as her main nutrition, you could also do a few training repetitions just before a meal using her kibble as the reward. Saves the Wagg treats for when you really need to raise the value, like settling in the crate at night.

You're set up well. Short sessions, soft treats, low quantity — that's the whole formula at 8 weeks. She'll be flying through recall in no time.