Does your Sunshine Coast Puppy Class Measure up?

So you’ve got a new puppy, and, like the responsible owner you are, one of the first things on your mind is ‘I really want him to get the right start with his training’. Usually the first thing you will be recommended to is a puppy class.

But is a typical puppy class actually going to help you achieve a well trained dog?  Lets look at how your puppy classes measures up.

Puppy classes typically have a huge focus on socialisation.  While it is good for your dog to know how to play with and interact with other dogs, there isn’t usually much focus on teaching your dog any balance in how it actually socialises.  Puppies need to learn to socialise and train around many different ages of dogs to learn a correctly balanced view on interacting with other dogs.  All too often puppies are exposed only to uncontrolled exuberant socialisation, which later down the track can backfire quickly with a dog that both has no control around other dogs, and is more likely to end up in an aggressive situation with another dog less appreciative of it’s over-excited play state.

Besides socialisation, you may have a very brief introduction to commands at one stage, with the remainder of your time devoted to health; an introduction to the recommended dog foods, vaccination schedules, worming routines, toys and products.  At the end, you usually leave with a puppy that’s expected to grow out of it’s unwanted habits and begin training at a much later stage, by which time your worst behaviours will already be cemented and much more difficult to alter.

From my point of view, mainly working with dogs on the Sunshine Coast that are at the above stage – out of control with owners at their witts end… “but we just don’t understand, we went to puppy school you know! ” …this is not acceptable.  Owners need to be aware of a few things when looking into puppy schools and training options, regardless of who they end up working with.

A puppy’s training needs to start seriously from the moment it enters the home.  Behaviours such as jumping up, re-call, play biting, whinging, barking, walking issues, and correct play are just a few of the topics that need to be addressed well and truly before 6 months old.  In fact, your dog should be 95% fully trained before it hits 6 months old, instead of the traditional idea of waiting until the dog is 12 months old to think about serious training.  This works brilliantly but requires the owner to sacrifice the indulgence of allowing the puppy to do whatever whenever in that cute stage and replace that with an appropriate training schedule.

In my opinion, it is cruel to knowingly allow your puppy to jump all over every one, whinge, sleep in your bed, pull on the leash, play bite etc, then expect when it turns 12 months old it will either (a) ‘grow out’ of it magically,  or (b) the owner decides to suddenly ‘crack down’ and change all the rules because it’s no longer cute when he jumps all over you in your white clothes, toilets everywhere and destroys the house every time you leave him alone.

Along with this, its imperative for new owners to realise the window to teach a perfect recall, along with fetch behaviours is extremely short; typically between 6-12 weeks old.  This is not to say that you cannot teach a recall after this point, but in many dogs this gets harder and harder and takes much longer to perfect than had you started immediately.  Along with this, having a dog that doesn’t have a good recall is an accident waiting to happen.  Literally.  The number of clients who I have worked with on their second dog, who waited too long to teach their first dog recall only to lose their dog to a car accident is actually quite disturbing!

Put simply, by 6 months old your puppy should;

1. Have a reliable recall no matter the distractions

2. Be able to walk on the leash with a loose leash regardless of distractions

3. Be fetching & releasing.

4 Have developed strong rag play.

5. Be able to be left alone at any time in any place with minimum – nonexistent whinging / barking / stressing.

6. Be sleeping through the night alone comfortably.

7. Be able to greet visitors and members of the family with all four paws firmly on the ground (no jumping up! )

8. Never play bite any human in any circumstance.

9. Understand food manners with the ability to easily walk away from food / release without aggression

10. Have the ability to ‘switch off’ from any play whether with humans or dogs on command.

11. Have toilet training at least 80% under control

No doubt as he/she grows up, you will go through times when your training is more or less evident, but as training is constantly monitored and maintained, your dog will grow into good habits and by the time maturity is reached, good behaviour is second nature.

How does your puppy training measure up?