Puppy classes - top tips

Thankfully most owners now know that their puppies need socialisation and habituation, and there are plenty of puppy playgroups and early training classes up and down the country to give owners this help.

A good puppy playgroup will give your dog a perfect start in his new life, and more than that, it can give you support at what can often be a difficult time…Puppies can be exhausting!

A good puppy class will not only help socialise your puppy but it will help you too and give you a forum to ask questions and get professional advice – and talk to others who understand what you are going through as a new dog owner.

Benefits of puppy classes

• Socialisation with unknown dogs and people in a strange situation so puppies get to learn appropriate social skills. Often owners don’t know other people with dogs and so their puppies grow up without ever learning to be social. It is in the first 16 weeks (and in some breeds and types, much earlier) where puppies learn the soft skills – the skills of social contact, communication, conflict resolution, problem solving and behavioural competencies. Puppy parties are great for helping develop these skills – as long as they are well-managed and don’t turn into a free-for-all charge around session.
• Practice your early training in a new place. Dogs don’t generalise… If you teach your puppy to sit in the kitchen, they will think that sit just means ‘sit in the kitchen’ unless you get them out and teach it everywhere. Puppy classes are great for this as the aim of socialisation is not that your puppy plays with every dog they see but instead can listen to you even when there are other dogs around.
• Good socialisation will help prevent many potential problems later – including some aggression problems (which in the main have their roots in fear). Even puppies who have had excellent socialisation by the breeder before they go to their new homes may grow up frightened of men or frightened of children because they haven’t had the chance to get used to lots of different people in a variety of situations and at the crucial life stages.
• As well as socialisation, you will also learn how to continue to habituate your puppy to the sights, sounds and experiences that will form part of their day-to-day life with you. This has to be done properly and positively without scaring your puppy or trying to get them to ‘face their fears’, as that can create the very fears and phobias you are trying to prevent.
• A puppy playgroup will give you a forum to ask questions and get answers to your problems and worries. People always have problems when they are raising a puppy – and if they have nowhere to ask questions, they will go to unreliable sources (the internet or TV). Many problems can be solved with the smallest input at this stage before they become a huge problem later.
• Playgroups are not just a forum to raise and solve problems – but a chance for a professional to be able to watch your puppy to see any potential problems and prevent them growing.

In the same way as you would when you choose a nursery for your child, go along and watch a class without your puppy. Check that all the puppies look happy and that they are enjoying themselves, make sure there are enough staff to watch every puppy, and make sure any off-lead time is well supervised and managed.

Most people think the main bit of a puppy playgroup is for the puppies to get a chance to play together but this is where many badly run puppy classes go disastrously wrong. Puppy parties should not be free for all off-lead mayhem.

Far too many puppy classes have unstructured playtime where all the puppies are allowed off the lead to charge around together. The ‘trainers’ have little understanding of behaviour, canine body language, and breed types, and they just leave everyone to sort it out for themselves!

This teaches the stronger pushy puppies how to be bullies, and the nervous puppies that it is right to be fearful, as there are some real bullies out there. These are often the foundations of dog-to-dog aggression problems. 

And the fairly well balanced puppies or more gung-ho pups who think it’s all loads of fun, just learn to ignore their owners, as other dogs are way more enjoyable to charge around with! These are the dogs who will go on to run up to dogs who are on lead and bounce all over them trying to get them to play, totally ignoring their owner who is trying to call them back. This isn’t being well-socialised – it’s being rude!

Not only do the confident dogs learn to ignore their owners, fearful dogs, who are often left to fend for themselves learn that they can’t rely on their owner, they have to make their own decisions, and they have to look after themselves. In other words, they lose the trust they should have in their owner.

Remember that these puppies are learning their soft skills – and what they learn now, in that first 14-16 weeks, will determine their future social interactions. They are learning how to interact with others, and what is dangerous as well as what is safe. 

Your aim, and the aim of a puppy class, is to teach them social skills – not teach them that other dogs can be dangerous. And you do not want to give the bolder stronger puppies a chance to practise being thugs at a time when they are learning these social skills.

More than anything, you are aiming to teach them that they can and should listen to you when there are other dogs and people around. This is the most valuable life skill a good puppy class can teach. 

So take time to find the perfect puppy play group or class – it really is a huge investment in your dog and your future together.