I always train puppies to stay with me. I walk my puppies on a leash from the time they are 8 weeks old for at least 10 minutes every day. Even 5 minutes of this gets them oriented to stay with a human when they are out and about. Later, around 8 months I start letting them off leash in a larger area providing it is fully fenced. My ranch is 5 acres, fully fenced, so it's a perfect training ground for this. I want my puppies to know that if it ever came to be that they slipped away from me in an unfenced area they are conditioned to return to me when I call them. However, this is not to say that I would EVER deliberately let a poodle go off leash in an uncontained area. Even the most trained Poodle can bolt if surprised or is over stimulated by something irrisistable like a rabbit crossing the path.