Puppy Preschool

Puppy Preschool is a series of meetings of puppies of a similar age and their owners aimed at allowing puppies to develop their socialisation skills and learn basic manners and commands. They also help train them to enjoy their visits to the vet clinic.

Behaviour problems are the main reason that dogs are re-homed or handed in to rescue centres and the number one reason that healthy dogs are euthanased. Ensuring that your puppy is well socialised and taught good manners at a young age is one of the best ways of avoiding behavioural problems at a later stage.

Puppies are very receptive to learning and to new ideas at a young age, especially between 6 to 16 weeks of age. During this stage they should be exposed to as many things as possible, such as being alone, children, all kinds of different people (e.g. different nationalities, people with beards etc), other dogs, loud noises and strange smells (e.g. the vet clinic!). It is also the right time to start training them basic commands.

On the other hand puppies can also become very timid if they are subjected to physical punishment as part of their training. Repetition and praise are the best ways of teaching puppies new commands. Learning should be fun for both the owner and puppy. Short sessions using food treats and praise, and ending on a positive note are very important. We help teach you how to train you puppy at puppy parties and start with basic (but important) commands such as ‘sit’, ‘come’ and ‘stay’.

Puppy Preschool allows puppies to learn to interact with other puppies at an age when it is unsafe to take them out to public areas to play with other dogs. Until one week after their final puppy vaccination, they are not fully protected from these potentially fatal diseases, making parks and other places that unvaccinated dogs may have been in unsafe.

Talk to the staff at the counter at any of the clinics if you would like more information about times and dates that Puppy Preschool is being run.