Puppy classes, what a waste of money!

[Luxaroma]

Does anyone get anything out of these classes?

We had an awful second class yesterday.

My pup who just adores playing with other dogs was being held by the trainer while she also held her own dog and I was asked to recall through a corridor of dogs...my dog couldn't even get past the distraction of the trainer's dog never mind getting focussed enough to make his way past all the other pups to find me.

So she suggests my dog isn't motivated by food and I disagree - it's just that being surrounded by 7 dogs is too exciting nothing can compete, he needs baby steps....so I've paid for block session with a trainer who really doesn't have any good ideas and I think I will need to abandon the classes as they are just setting my dog up to fail.

Good job I listened to the good people of MN and bought Total Recall(which suggests using play with other dogs as the reward for recall) that and Kikopup will have to suffice.

You are never going to train recall in a hall ,its a bit like saying your dog has good recall because he comes when you call him in your house . Recall is something you train the dog either yourself or with a 1:1 trainer in a field ,what your puppy class was doing was more like a temptation alley .

Yes I would say that the trainer isn't suitable for you but please don't be put off. Go and find another one. Dog training is invaluable. And it's not just for puppy classes either, it's a long term commitment.

Oh no I'm not put off training - I'm quite determined on that score, but for now I will be following the advice of the total recall programme and proofing his recall gradually and I may enlist the help of a trainer at a later stage.

I'm in Australia, and one of the things that really tickled me when I got here was that they have "puppy pre-school". I had visions of puppies doing pawpainting, bonio craft etc (ok, tongue in cheek).

But when I expressed my amusement to Aussie friends, they didn't get it at all :( - they all took puppy preschool very seriously.

Anyway, in a spirit of helpfulness, this is a pdf of why puppy preschool is important and what it should help with - and how a good trainer is essential. Hope fully you might find some useful tips and work out whether or not your class trainer is a "good" one or more likely to do more harm than good. Hope it helps.

Thanks Thumbwitch - our trainer so far has done very little of what is mentioned in that written piece. I think her classes lack structure, there is no progress built on last week's training....I feel her one size fits all approach is damaging. Luckily Dpup is socially confident with all sorts of people, dogs and noises and he is not aggressive. He just lacks focus and discipline, part of this is age related - he gets a bit over enthusiastic about play, whether it's with another dog or human, I know I need to teach him some restraint and I will work hard to do this but paying out for a set of 8 useless lessons has left me feeling reluctant to invest again. I think one to one would be more uselful if I ever found the right trainer.

We had a similar bad experience to yours OP. Trainer not very experienced with our breed, pup way overstimulated, lots of failed exercises and left feeling very disappointed and negatively judged. I would go so far as to say it spoiled our early weeks with the puppy.

What did help us was finding another class which was held outdoors, in a big field. The dogs were able to do a little bit of training (far apart from each other), then run around for 5 minutes, then come back and train for another 10 mins, and so on. We found this a lot less stressful - in fact it was fun. It was also a much more realistic and constructive way of training recall and working around distractions, and we made lots of progress across the board. We still go once or twice a month.

Horses for courses I suppose - not every trainer will suit every owner/dog pairing but that doesn't mean there isn't a class out there that you will both enjoy and get something from.

This is worrying i’m going to my first Puppy class tonight,😬

Good luck with your Puppy training - it's probably all changed by now.
I did train my dog, he had excellent doggie manners and recall, it was a hard slog but we got there. He was an amazing companain We lost him last year to heart failure. Hold those puppies close, losing them is very hard. Not sure we'll ever get over losing him.😓

We did puppy classes with our late Basset. He was hopeless. Just wanted the treats and to say hello to everyone. Bassets are stubborn as hell too. I did know this when we joined as I grew up with Bassets but thought I’d give him the chance. He got a certificate at the end which said ideally he could use doing the course again as he was a borderline pass, that did make us laugh. Lady was rather uptight because he wouldn’t do tricks and when she recalled him, he just sat there blinking at her, which is so Basset. I still have that certificate, that summed him up really. We’re now planning another puppy this summer (another Basset) and I won’t bother. New pup can socialise at Basset meet ups instead and I know what I’m doing with the basic training.

@Houndmumma I no, exactly what you mean, It’s good to hear other peoples experiences as well. Thank you for sharing.There so much information now online about training when she was very tiny and we first got her I started her training and to be honest I did all of it for YouTube, So I was really just going for socialisation, but it is a bit stressful. I get why you don’t want to do the Puppy classes. I might not stick it out yet,X

Yeah socialisation is very important but we’ve always attended monthly breed specific meet ups and obviously taking them out, they meet so many other dogs there. I think it depends on the breed too, some love the mental stimulation of the training or are naturally so hyper, they really need it. Whereas for my breed it’s generally all about scent tracking and the sniffs. My late two could smell people picnicking 10 miles away but mostly slept when home as they’re a very laid back breed! 😃 Also depends on the puppy class trainers and if they understand the quirks of individual breeds too.