Puppy Class
You can bring your puppy to watch or join in a class as soon as you are ready providing we have space.
Younger pups who have yet to complete their jabs can be carried in and out from the car and sit on your lap and watch (or sleep), whilst you learn along with the class.
This class may not be what you initially expect! The content of these classes is informed by what is usually missing when we see dogs with difficult behaviours – often a lack of ability to be calm, to listen, to ask and be connected to the owner. This is not an off-lead play session – this is all about building future proof skills for you and your puppy. Each session includes time to build play and calmness skills week on week so you can support your puppy to be calm and interact positively with others dogs and people.
Each class is 45 minutes long and is a term of 7 lessons which you need to book onto. Places are limited to 8 dogs.
After each class, we will email a lesson and handouts to you to support you teaching at home. This is generally on a Wednesday.
During this initial term, and onwards, we evaluate the skills and knowledge your puppy has learnt with the APDT Good Companion Awards Good Companion Awards (apdt.co.uk). We will send you the information pack when you enrol into classes with us. You don’t have to join in with award if you would prefer not to!
You can follow on with the Young Dogs class after completing this term. This is structured to continue to embed the skills your puppy is learning as well as teaching new skills for this important phase of their life. For more information, click on the Young Dogs classes link in the menu.
What style of training do we use?
In all our classes, we use an evidenced based, positive approach to teaching you and your dog. This is based around modern research and does not involve any approaches which are considered to be aversive and punishing for your dog.
We teach how to read how your dog may be feeling – but download this great app which shows in pictures what your dog is feeling – some of them are pictures where a dog is mistaken for being happy (and he isn’t). Download and share especially with children. Dog decoder app
