What is Puppy Preschool?
Puppy Preschool classes are a vital part of raising a healthy, happy puppy. In a few short weeks, a puppy learns the lessons of a lifetime. Puppy Preschool will dramatically improve a puppy’s behaviour and its relationship with you, the proud owner.
The goal of our classes is to produce a happy, confident, obedient dog by preschooling puppies in the clinic environment. It is important that what we teach them during this early stage results in a well-behaved and acceptable adult pet.
By starting now, we can prevent bad habits and teach our pets good manners in a fun and friendly environment.
Puppy Preschool has these basic aims:
1. To Socialise your puppy.
Puppies have a critical period of socialisation between 8 and 16 weeks of age. During this period, it is important to expose puppies to as many novel things and experiences as possible, in a non-threatening way. Socialisation will make the puppy confident and enable it to cope with normal everyday things, including noises, smells, water, other animals, strangers and even vets! They learn social skills and recognise other animals in a friendly way helping to prevent dangerous behaviour . Shy puppies gain confidence and bullies quickly learn to be more gentle.
2. To teach basic commands such as come, sit, stay and heel using positive reinforcement.
3. Make visits to the vet clinic an enjoyable experience.
4. Teach owners about normal behaviour of dogs, how to recognise early behavioural problems and how to prevent them as well as covering aspects such as how to house-train, how to stop biting and barking.
5. Educate owners on aspects of pet care such as nutrition, dentistry, bathing and grooming.
6. Provide educational fun!