Winter 2001

Puppy training, toilet training & care: Why go to Puppy Preschool

Puppy Preschool will make an invaluable contribution to your dog’s development.

Why?

It provides the foundations for helping your dog become a terrific mate. Obedience training is started in Puppy Preschool with dogs learning rudimentary commands like sit, stay, come. Training is rewards-based, so the dog is given food treats when it behaves appropriately. This is terrific fun for both the pups and the owners, and provides a good basis for continuing training in the future.

More important reasons for attending Puppy Preschool are temperament training and socialisation. Unlike obedience, temperament modification can only be achieved in the PUPPY phase of life. This occurs when pups are exposed to other pups, dogs, and people, and learn to relate to them. Dogs that don’t have good socialisation are at risk of becoming aggressive, fearful of people or other dogs, and difficult to manage in later life. (Think of the aggressive dog at the park who is likely to attack, they probably were not socialised adequately as a pup). Puppy preschool helps pups to become well-balanced dogs that like other dogs and people. Dogs are gregarious creatures, pack-animals who like and need the company of others, and Puppy Preschool helps them learn to develop the appropriate relationships with members of their "pack" (i.e. their family) and others they encounter daily.

Puppy Preschool helps the owners of new dogs develop good habits too, by allowing them to think like their pup, and understand the reactions of their pups. It is important that owners stay in control, and that the pup does not learn to "train" its owner with bad habits!

A final and very important reason for attending Puppy Preschool classes is that it familiarises the dog with the vet hospital, and creates a special, often life-long bond with the building and staff. Graduated pups love coming back to visit, and are easier to handle for examination and treatment purposes in the future. When you think about it from the dog’s point of view, the vet is a place where you get jabbed with a needle, poked and prodded, and may be a bit scary to your average dog. Puppy Preschool dogs love the vet, they have friends here and know that it is an exciting place where they meet other dogs. They are the ones who bound in through the front doors for years afterwards, which makes our job much easier!