I want to train Dill, I really do...

[SoupDragon]

But why does no one run classes in the day??
I can not get out in the evening to take him so we're stuffed.

So far I've found one afternoon class and, surprise surprise, it's full.

The only option left is one to one training which doesn't have the scope for improving his social skills. I'm beginning to get fed up with him, through no fault of his own, because despite my best efforts, he is unreliable. Which isn't to say I don't love him dearly.

[rant over]

No day classes here either. Many trainers will do 1-2-1 training in the day, but it will cost £££. The lady that ran my class charged £50 per hour (so I went to the group).

I can't believe there are no day classes.

It's so frustrating I want to weep.

Where do you live? There are classes held during the day in Muswell Hill, North London if that is any use to you.

Sadly not. I'm in Croydon, South London/Surrey borders. :)

I may gave to set up as a dog trainer myself and corner the market of daytime courses. Ignoring the fact that I've failed to train my own dog, naturally.

Is East Sheen possible for you? Karen England runs classes on a Friday morning there I think. You can google her to get more info. We are booked to do her early evening classes in Kingston in Sept.

best of luck - we can't wait for the classes.

I don't know if you've tried Vera at Wagging Tails (South Norwood if that's not too far away)? She's an excellent trainer...

www.wtdt.co.uk/

As an aside, may I ask what you mean when you say that he's unreliable? One thing that came to mind was that dogs don't generalise well so a dog who knows that 'come here' means come here in the house or local park, may not understand that it means come here on the beach or another new walk. They will often ignore the command, and then as you get more frustrated, will offer 'calming signals', like stopping to sniff around or coming over in a wide arc, to try to calm you down (which often has the opposite effect, as it looks like disobedience to us!!). Commands needs 'proofing' for all sorts of different situations to become reliable. Apologies if this isn't what you meant at all - just thinking out loud here!

If you're really stuck for a training class then there are some excellent clicker training videos on youtube (search for Karen Pryor clicker training) and some very good books that can help you through it too. I know this won't hep with socialisation, but perhaps there will be some other owners in the park with calm, well-behaved dogs you can walk with regularly.

I hope this helps, and best of luck with your pup x

I think you may be quite close to Robert Alleyne. Before I knew he was on telly (Dog Borstal), he came to East London to help us with one of our dogs and a new baby. He is very very kind and sensible and may well know of some local classes if he doesn't run one.

I'm not very good at following instructions from a book, but I really like FUNctional Dog Training by Roy Hunter. I think the class in Muswell Hill is with John Menzies, who is fantastic and used to have Saturday morning classes. We travelled quite far to get there!