Sorry to sound thick but could someone explain what happens at Puppy Parties?  I would like to be prepared before i get there!  What do they do and what do they learn?

What age can they start proper regular classes for beginners?

Thanx

Alot of vets run puppy parties they are mainly for socialisation and they do them between the 2 injection parts of the vacination. It is definately worth while finding a good puppy school/training club to go to once the pup has had all of his/her injections, at these they learn to become well socialised controllable dogs.

Sadly somew are not very good and no better than a puppy free for all where smaller shyer pups can be frightened or bullied by bigger bolder ones.

Good ones will ahe good supervised play between puppies so that they gain confidence and become well adjusted around other pups and dogs.

I would always advise going along to one before you take yoru pup with you, the same goes for training classes.

If there is anything you are unsure or uncomfortable about question it politely and ask the trainers/organisers reasoning.

As the others have said - a bad puppy class can be worse than no class at all, as shy puppies can learn to use aggression to be left alone, and bully puppies learn that being a thug gets them loads of attention and their own way.

There are half way classes which will take your puppy post vaccination and start teaching you the owner how to train your puppy using kind, fair and effective methods to form a sound foundation which you can then build on if you wish to take it further, but often this is the only sort of training a family dog will need, so long as it's kept up (you and your dog will probably enjoy it so much, you'll probably want to anyway)

I took my puppy to one of these parties last week and it was utter bedlam, it did him much more harm than good.  I am sure they all differ. I wish I had checked it out before but they only hold them once a month at the vets and by the time the second one came round my puppy would have missed out on socialising, he would have been 15 weeks.  I am supposed to go back next week, but it is going to be a definite NO.  I have introduced him to calmer older dogs and although he was a bit stroppy at first within a few minutes he was much friendlier towards him knowing that they were not going to bite or chase him.

I'd suggest avoiding anything run by vets unless you can go beforehand to see the set up and be sure pups are not allowed to run riot :)

It would be better to do research and find a really good puppy socialisation class (usually suitable from just after they have had their injections) so maybe from the age of 12 weeks (approx.). but, the good ones get booked up quickly so don't hang about :P

Lindsay
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