# Puppy Kindergarten



## murieics (May 10, 2009)

How exciting! I am planning to go by my local Petsmart either today or tomorrow to get Jake signed up for puppy kindergarten! Have fun!!


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## schpeckie (Jun 29, 2010)

It was really good to get her used to other dogs in a friendly atmosphere. She even play barked at a few of them, rolled over on her tummy and being just the little playful one she is! It is a really basic program at petsmart, sit - stay-come etc., but worth the $100 for 8 weeks. Then you can register them in higher levels down the road.


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## Skye (Feb 19, 2010)

Aw, how fun! Auggie starts on Friday. I'm looking forward to it.


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## schpeckie (Jun 29, 2010)

SKYE, you have to let me know how Auggie did and if they have the same basic training procedures in the USA.


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## murieics (May 10, 2009)

We are signed up and we start the Tuesday before Thanksgiving! I'm so excited!


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## schpeckie (Jun 29, 2010)

murieics said:


> How exciting! I am planning to go by my local Petsmart either today or tomorrow to get Jake signed up for puppy kindergarten! Have fun!!


Hey there, You have to let me know how Jake does!


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## cbrand (Aug 9, 2009)

I personally don't like letting puppies run all around together. I don't think it encourages socialization and as you found out, it is often totally overwhelming for some dogs, especially those that are smaller. For those puppies that already have a tendency to play too rough, I think it gets them too wound up.

Socialization is fine, but IMHO it should be done on leash where the puppies can be controlled.


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

Well, Millie sure loved puppy kindergarten! It worked perfectly for us. The puppies would get about 5 min. of off leash play time and then we would do about 20-30 min of training, and end with another play session. The puppies always played very well together - small and large. Well, Millie was always the largest puppy, ha ha. And the most wound up, "vocal" and animated puppy. She always brought herself together for training time though! 

As she got a bit older, we began formal training with a private trainer. He observed Millie around other dogs and said that she has the best social skills of any dog he has ever seen. He said many dogs don't respect other dog's space and don't know how to "properly" greet each other. Millie is very respectful of space (unless it's _Henry_'s space...) and is a polite greeter. I really think all of that playtime with puppies had something to do with it!! 

Henry never did puppy kindergarten and is quite rude when it comes to meeting new dogs...Probably just his nature, but I can't help but wonder if puppy kind. would have helped!


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## murieics (May 10, 2009)

cbrand said:


> I personally don't like letting puppies run all around together. I don't think it encourages socialization and as you found out, it is often totally overwhelming for some dogs, especially those that are smaller. For those puppies that already have a tendency to play too rough, I think it gets them too wound up.
> 
> Socialization is fine, but IMHO it should be done on leash where the puppies can be controlled.


It's interesting you say this, because I've found it to be somewhat true. Jake doesn't get too riled up when playing usually, but in trying to find lots of well socialized dogs and puppies for him to interact with, I've found he seems to prefer the smaller, calmer adult dogs. He does ok with calm larger dogs, but he has a hard time figuring out how to play with them. 

I've only been able to get him face time with one other puppy- a four month old Border Collie- and she gets way too rambunctious for him. He does fine with her when she's calm, but that only lasts a few minutes, and then Jake is done playing with her- because she literally runs over him, and he doesn't appreciate it.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I took mine to an excellent Puppy class here in the UK, where there was very little off-lead play - two or three pups of a similar size and weight might be given the opportunity to play together for a few minutes, but that was about it. Rather than free play, they learned to relax in a room with other people and puppies (never more than 6 dogs in the class), with rugs, chew toys and treats to encourage calm behaviour. We did reward based puppy training - Sit, Down, loose leash walking - and moved on to Come and other games, plus a training topic for the owners every week. It certainly worked for mine - they met lots of nice adult dogs out of class as well, of course. 

Sophy has outstanding canine social skills - I was so impressed when we met a reactive Staffie the other day. His owner is careful to muzzle him around dogs, and I kept my two well back, and then, with her permission, suggested to Sophy that she might say Hello. She moved in very slowly, very gently, and very, very politely, until he was happily nose to nose with her with no reaction at all - Poppy, of course, spoilt things wanting to join in!

I think it is very important to know your puppy, and manage the situation accordingly - I had a longish disagreement with a blogger on the DogStar site about this - she felt it was important for small pups to learn to cope with playing with big pups - I felt it was a recipe for harm to the small dog, and teaching them to be snappy snarly with other dogs!


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## schpeckie (Jun 29, 2010)

Hi Everyone, don't get me wrong - but it was only a small amount of time in the 1st class that the dogs socialized with the other dogs while us humans learned about each breed that was in the class. It was the owner's decision if they wanted to participate. It was just interesting seeing how Sadie played with the smaller breeds, and basically ignored the larger ones.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Didn't mean to sound accusatory, schpeckie! More to agree with you that pups should choose their own playmates, and not be pushed past their comfort zone.


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## Beach girl (Aug 5, 2010)

I agree with the above, about knowing your own dog. My first poodle, Bounder, was perfectly fine playing with larger dogs. Pippin we got as an adult. He is a small mini, but his best buddies have been the larger dogs in our neighborhood. Casey is a tall mini, but he gets overwhelmed easily by larger dogs, while he is fine with dogs his own size.

It seems to be a very individual thing, how small dogs react to dogs a lot larger than themselves. Even for puppies who are good with larger pups, you still have to keep a sharp eye out because of the potential for harm, even in play. 

Anyway, Sylvia, sounds like your pups are doing great. You are definitely off to a good start to get them in puppy K. I think it makes a HUGE difference to teach them things as early as possible. There seems to be something that sort of clicks on in the doggie brain as they learn how to learn. The earlier they figure out that speech means something, and rewards will follow certain behaviors, the easier it is to teach all sorts of things further down the line.


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## penny_ann (May 29, 2010)

Penny did puppy K too. She did well in the class, there were only 2 puppies in the class plus the trainer brought her dog. The trainer's dog was an older bigger lab mix that was extremely gentle with the puppies. He let them climb all over him during play time which helped Penny as she was terrified of the bigger dogs before class. I was hoping to do other classes with her but my work schedule makes that difficult.


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## schpeckie (Jun 29, 2010)

fjm said:


> Didn't mean to sound accusatory, schpeckie! More to agree with you that pups should choose their own playmates, and not be pushed past their comfort zone.


No Problemo! All is ok! BTW - your dogs are really cute! I love the name Sophy and that was one of the ideas that I also had for one of my pups. Such a lovely name!


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

schpeckie said:


> BTW - your dogs are really cute! I love the name Sophy and that was one of the ideas that I also had for one of my pups. Such a lovely name!


Thank you - I read Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy at a formative age, and have loved the name ever since!


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## schpeckie (Jun 29, 2010)

Well, the girls are doing really well in Puppy kindergarten class! Already 5 classes captured. They are so smart, they are already being used by the trainer to teach some commands. Lacey finally after the 3rd class is walking with me on the leash! No more tugging and pulling. I guess she figured out that she better walk with me or else no treat in the end! Yesterday, 4 pitbulls came into the store and were somewhat intimidating, but the girls just kept their distance. Actually, I stayed away with them since one of them was wearing a muzzle. 3 more classes to go and next week we learn not to jump up! That will be a good one with the little Yorkie in the class - I swear he eats mexican jumping beans!


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## murieics (May 10, 2009)

I was actually thinking about this thread this morning and wondering how everyone's classes were going! 

Jake had his second class last night. We covered sit and played pass the puppy. We also briefly discussed loose leash walking. Honestly, the biggest problem I am having with Jake is that he get bored.

For example, last night, we were working on "sit". Jake already knows how to sit, as I try to make sure he already has a good foundation for each command we are going to learn in class before we go to class. All those other dogs in a small area (and being in a store), I feel like it would be very difficult to actually teach him something new in class. So, we start on sit. Our trainer wants us to start as if the puppies have never heard the word sit before. So we are supposed to give a hand signal (or lure the puppy) to sit at least 6 times. Then, once they can sit off of a hand signal, we are supposed to pair the hand signal with the word at least six times. Finally, we are supposed to only give the word command. So we did. By the time we were finished doing all of those things (it only took 2 minutes, max), the trainer was still helping the second person try to get their puppy to sit once! I got Jake to sit for longer lengths of time- we made it up to four second intervals. We worked on the "watch me" commands- he will look at you to a count of 14. Then we played fetch with a toy I brought for a few minutes. By the time the trainer got to us to make sure that Jake could sit, Jake was so tired of sitting that it was hard to get him to focus long enough to get another sit. :wacko: And there were only three dogs that she checked on before us (our class has five puppies in it total). 

Is anyone else having this problem? I felt kind of bad. When the trainer asked how Jake was doing (at this point he's trying to figure out how to get to the puppy next to him to take a play break), I told her he was bored- and she said she was too. :lol: 

The difficult part about our class is that the trainer wants us to spend the whole hour in class actually learning (some of the time working with the puppies, the rest of the time learning how to train the puppies)- other than pass the puppy, we haven't (and won't) spend class time socializing the puppies. I appreciate that she wants us to get our moneys' worth, but it is really, really hard to get a 3 1/2 month old puppy to sit still and behave (and focus!) for an hour.

I know schpeckie mentioned what all types of puppies she had in her classes- I was interested (in a horrified sort of way), to learn about all of our puppies in our class. We have Jake (who is my mini poodle), a lab/rottie mix, a heinz 57 mix (he looks like some sort of corgi mix to me, but with floppy ears), a schnoodle, and a peek-a-poo. The peek-a-poo doesn't even look like a poodle mix. The schnoodle....she's a dark apricot color, and doesn't really have any schnauzer to her whatsoever. She's actually really cute (but her owner needs a lesson in dog grooming- she's covered in mats). 

I did have another question- when y'all played pass the puppy in your puppy classes- how did other people's puppies respond to being handled? I didn't really get to pay attention to how Jake was doing (he seemed ok when I looked up, but no one really seemed to be actually looking in ears or picking up feet like they were supposed to be doing...), but I was surprised at how most of the puppies reacted to being handled. Most were pretty anxious about strangers (even when being fed treats). None would really let you mess with their feet, ears, mouths or tails (which is what we were supposed to be doing). I managed to look in most of the puppies' ears, and could at least touch most feet, but when it came to looking in mouths- no way! I couldn't even touch the side of their noses without them throwing a fit- is this something most people don't work on?


Schpekie- what all have you covered in class so far? Are you planning to take any additional classes?

I think Skye said she was taking classes too- how are Auggie's classes going so far???

Look forward to hearing from everyone!!


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## schpeckie (Jun 29, 2010)

Schpekie- what all have you covered in class so far? Are you planning to take any additional classes?

I think Skye said she was taking classes too- how are Auggie's classes going so far???

Look forward to hearing from everyone!! [/QUOTE]

Hey There, I was wondering how Jake was doing, so that is why I updated this thread!
I can understand with Jake being bored too! The girls learn so fast, that they want learn something different. It's a good thing that we go out into the store to practice - some new areas to sniff! When we passed around the dogs in class, the girls are so lovable and you could basically touch them anywhere. Some of the other dogs, you couldn't touch their faces or paws - some were quite timid.
The girls have learned so far to sit, stay, down, leave it and getting used to a leash. I asked the trainer if I should register them again in puppy kindergarten, and she said that the next level would be good. I will check it out for the next few months. I would like to keep their training fresh in their minds.
Ya, I was also thinking how Auggie was doing too - please keep us posted.


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