Lessons Your Puppy
Will Learn At College

Basic obedience Coming back when called Lead & collar training Toilet training Socialisation with people Socialisation with dogs Food guarding Car travel

Bathing & grooming Jumping up Livestock training Chewing Toys Swimming lessons Veterinary visits Time at the Creche

Your puppy will be taught to sit on command, lie down, wait and stay. All training is done with the modern, 'no stress' method of clicker training. Owners will be shown how to continue the clicker training at home. The 'sit', 'stay', and 'come' commands are very important lessons enabling you to control your dog at all times. it is important to get this training correct.

A mistake very often made is to keep a young puppy on a lead for too long before trying them off the lead. A new anxious owner can be too tense and worried that this vulnerable little puppy will not come back. The best time to start your pup off with free exercise is when they are at their youngest.

Your puppy's safety depends on you! A dog should never be allowed out without being under proper control, that means both on or off the lead. You can start collar and lead training your pup from day one, this is the time they are easiest to train.

At the Creche your young puppy will be lead trained in just a few short lessons. Older puppies who have taken control of the lead training from their owners will be retrained. The older your dog becomes with a problem of pulling on the lead, the longer it will take to stop.

Some puppies can be house trained quickly, while others take much longer. Newspaper training can be confusing to a puppy, but sometimes it is the best way. Advice is given on how to use newspaper training effectively, and information is available on commercial products available.

Puppies should be given the opportunity to meet as many adults and children as possible while still very young. If your circumstances at home or work do not allow for this to happen, the Creche can give your puppy all the socialising it needs.

Dogs need to learn how to behave with humans, but they should also be able to play with other dogs.

Pack learning: By removing a puppy from its mother and litter mates when it is 6, 7 or 8 weeks old, it is prevented from learning naturally how to behave with its own kind. Adult dog and puppy socialising can prevent conflict later in an adult dog's life, which can be very upsetting and difficult for an owner to deal with if the pup grows up to be aggressive with other dogs.

Dogs are a very social pack animal, and puppies and most adult dogs need time to play and socialise with their own kind. The Creche has its own built-in canine pack of all sizes and ages to help in the teaching of canine pack learning experiences. Also lots of other young puppies to play with of about their own age.

Some breeds are more prone to food guarding, e.g. terriers. The Creche will teach your puppy to give up its food bowl, chews and toys when asked. This will avoid aggressive and dominant guarding of food when your puppy grows into an adult dog.

Many puppies are sick on early car travel trips. Sometimes they are fed before a car journey, or the journey is too long with no reward at the end. Most dogs will grow out of car sickness as they grow up if you continue to take your puppy out on regular trips. The Creche can take your puppy on small journeys, with play sessions at the end of them.

Most puppies' coats do not need a great deal of attention, but the training to teach a dog to accept being bathed and groomed must be done right from day one, even if the puppy does not seem to have a coat to groom. At the Creche your puppy will be bathed and groomed, and nails clipped, on a regular basis and you will be taught how to check your dog's teeth, ears, feet and important little places. This early learning is particularly important for breeds that are to be clipped on a regular basis. The Creche has its own clipping room and experienced dog groomer.

Jumping up is a natural activity for a dog, but seen as an unsociable behaviour by humans. A puppy greets its mother by jumping up to lick her face. As your dog grows up to adulthood, this can become a problem, and can be misinterpreted as aggression. Only praise your puppy when it is in a sit position, or has all four paws on the ground. The Creche will not only teach your puppy not to jump up, but hopefully teach you how not to encourage it to jump up.

Your puppy needs to be taught to lie down on command and stay down for short spells off lead, but also to lie down quietly for longer periods of time by your side. The Creche will start the training for you, then teach the owners how to continue this training at home. Trips to a local cafe where dogs are allowed, and short bus trips, can give your puppy plenty of experiences of behaving in a quiet and controlled way whilst in public. This particular part of a pup's training needs a lot of time and patience, but is worth every bit of effort to have a reliable and sociable companion that you can take anywhere, without any fears.

It is a natural hunting and survival instinct for a dog to chase and kill other animals. Unless a dog has enough socialising with other animals while it is still young, you may have problems with some adult dogs when meeting potential prey. Creche puppies are introduced to sheep, horses, cats and small animals as early as possible to try and eliminate chasing problems later in life. And to enable you to enjoy a walk in the country without the fear of any problems. This is particularly important for puppies that live in the town, and do not have much access normally to livestock.

A dog's instinct to hunt, chase and kill small animals remains very strong in the domestic dog. The law allows farmers to shoot on sight any dog that is running loose among livestock. Don't let this happen to your dog! The key to prevention is early socialising with livestock when your puppy is very young.

Puppies chew when they are teething; this is between 3 to 7 months of age. This is to relieve their gums as they lose their baby teeth, and their adult teeth grow through. Provide your puppy with safe things to chew, such as rawhide chews, and plenty of toys.

Playing with toys will help your puppy with mental and physical stimulation. Find your puppy a strong toy box which can be placed in a corner of the room with his own toys in it. Be careful, too many toys may encourage the puppy to think that it can chew anything it finds. Advice will be given to owners about the right kind of toys to give your puppy, and how to play 'constructive learning games'.

All puppies can swim at birth, it is an automatic reaction for a dog to start swimming when put in water. Some owners may not want their dogs to enjoy water and jump into every puddle or river they find. But if you intend holidays by the river or the sea, especially if you have one of the breeds that love swimming in water e.g. Labs, springers and Newfoundlands, you may want to start them off swimming when they are young. It is also a very effective remedy for injuries and a good fitness aid for illness recovery, as well as good fun for your puppy.

The Creche can arrange to take your puppy for swimming lessons at our local canine hydropool. Extra charge for this service.

Your puppy will have several visits to a veterinary surgery for no other reason than to get used to the smell of vet centres, where they will be praised, stroked and given titbits to help them enjoy visits to the vet. Usually something unpleasant happens to them when they visit the vet, and this is when fear and aggression can start.

Puppies have short attention spans, and training is mentally exhausting for the very young. A young puppy up to about 4 months of age may need visits of about 2 hours at a time for training purposes, of which some of this time will be for training, some for play, and a lot of sleep time, all of which are good learning experiences. Older pups can take 3 to 4 hours, depending on the breed.