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Puppy Training Sleaford

6 week course for all puppies under 6 months of age

Courses are £80 and you can choose to attend on a Thursday evening or a Saturday morning

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  • Puppy training is accredited by the Kennel Club as part of the Good Citizen Scheme, you can read the full requirements of the course here.
  • You'll get a Happy Puppy Pack including a puppy training handbook and clicker.
  • Our first session together covers the theory of how dogs learn so you can train your puppy everything you need to have a happy home life.
  • Over 5 practical sessions we combine training with fun activities for your puppy.
  • All sessions provide periods of rest so your puppy can learn to relax and settle too.
  • Plus we work on confidence building and socialisation throughout the sessions to help your puppy grow up confident and happy.
  • Throughout the course you'll be supported and assessed by our puppy team to bond with your puppy and master the basics of reward based training.

SLEAFORD

How To Start Puppy Training

Puppies come pre-programmed to learn. Our role is to make sure they get rewarded for the things we want more of.

Dogs learn by consequence. In other words, your dog will “do something” and what happens IMMEDIATELY following that action decides whether your dog is likely to repeat that behaviour. 

For your puppy there are three possible consequences to their actions;

  1. Things get better for your puppy
  2. Things get worse for your puppy
  3. Nothing much changes for your puppy

For instance – Your puppy jumps up and starts to lick your face (The Action)

The possible consequences are;

[+] You giggle, cuddle and praise your dog.

[-] You shout and push your dog to the floor.

[  ] You stand up and ignore your dog completely.

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The first response is pleasant

praise, giggles and cuddles are pleasant for your dog and so your dog is likely to repeat the behaviour to gain a repeat of the cuddles that followed! The cuddles and attention were a REWARD for the behaviour. 

This may well be cute when the puppy is little but not so cute and enjoyable when it’s a fully-grown adult who has been playing in muddy puddles! 

So be mindful of what you REWARD from the very beginning.

Training your new puppy to toilet

The second response is unpleasant

The second response is unpleasant for the puppy and therefore the puppy is unlikely to repeat the behaviour. 

However, the puppy may associate the punishment with any of the things that are part of the event, even you! 

So, in shouting and pushing your dog to the floor your dog became frightened and may even be hurt in the process.

That fear may become associated with any elements of the event. Your dog could develop a fear of approaching you or people in general, it may develop a fear/anxiety in that particular room or a fear as people walk into that room or any room. 

 

The dog may develop an association of potential pain when being handled by you or by humans. 

The process of punishment is complex and it is very difficult to control what associations are being made by the dog. 

That is why an increasing number of trainers avoid using punishment methods for animal training. Any time we add in a punishment we risk the dogs wellbeing and the use of aversive methods is well documented to cause aggression and reactive behaviours.

The third response of ignoring the puppy was neither positive nor negative.

The behaviour of jumping up at you caused nothing to happen.

The interesting result of this consequence is that a neutral consequence has the same effect as a punishment (without the possible fear/pain associations). So, the dog is less likely to repeat the behaviour!

Like us, dogs don’t see the benefit of putting in lots of effort for no reward. Animal learning has evolved to aid survival. Animals do what is best for them. If an action results in no benefit then it is a waste of time, energy and resources repeating that action.

This third response could be developed to reward the following desired behaviour by waiting until the dog has all feet on the ground and then praising and fussing the dog – Rewarding the desired behaviour.

Puppies learn through repetition. This means we need to consistently repeat our training with our dogs to establish and generalise the desired behaviour. Lots of little and often sessions are much better for a puppy.  They have very small attention spans and so we set up the structure of the class to reflect that and give you lots to practice between sessions.

All the puppy training we do is founded on these principles of training.

  • Reward what we want more of.
  • Where it’s safe to do so, ignore behaviour we don’t want.
  • Never punish a puppy or dog.

Here's Exactly What We Cover In Puppy Training…

The theory lesson is people only, puppies stay at home.  We cover the learning theory, what you need to bring to puppy training and how to start training the ‘look at me’ cue. We are also on hand to answer any questions about puppy training you have so far.

We cover the basic cues such as sit, down & stand. The real goal of week 1 is for puppies to come to class, learn to be around other puppies and enjoy their treats.

We tackle the two biggest things dog owners want.  A dog that walks nicely on lead and a dog that comes back when called.  

We start to ask the puppy to make their own choices and control their impulses.  Puppies are surprisingly good at this when given the chance.

We work on cues such as ‘leave it’ and recall from a distance. We also look at the importance of playtime and how to build a play relationship with your puppy.

We celebrate with a confidence building course and socialisation skills.  Looking at situations your puppy is likely to encounter such as trips to the vets and how body checks and muzzle training can help prepare them for that.

Just completed the puppy foundation course with Liz. So pleased we did, we learnt so much and we are now much more confident with training our puppy. Liz and Kirsty made us feel welcome and loved every dog no matter the breed, size, character or temperament. It was great for socialisation for both dogs and owners. Here is our 18 week old Doberman puppy Quinn with her certificate and graduation present!
Carla & Quinn
Carla & Quinn
Loved our puppy class experience - Lizz has so much knowledge to share and makes the classes really informative and fun. Dilly has come on so much - can’t wait to start the next stage
Lou & Dilly
Lou & Dilly
We have just completed the puppy foundation class. It was excellent, we learnt lots and Lizz and the team were so friendly and happy to help, really put both me and my dog at ease. Would definitely recommend.
Laura & Maggie
Laura & Maggie
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Puppy Training Sleaford

Thursday Evening 6pm
Thursday Evening 7pm
Saturday Morning 9am
Saturday Morning 10am

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Westlodge, Westfield Road, Leasingham, NG34 8LZ