New puppy class venue in West Berkshire

New puppy classes venue in West Berkshire!!!!

This  news is so exciting, I feel it warrants more than my usual social media post!

For the last six years we have been running puppy classes exclusively from our Mapledurham venue – as when we first started offering classes to new puppy owners, Ian and I lived in Caversham.

Over the years we have had customers travelling to us from not just Berkshire and Oxfordshire, but also from Hampshire, Surrey & Buckinghamshire.

We now have an amazing team of qualified and soon-to-be qualified trainers, who not only share our ethics and passion for force & fear free training, but also have been assisting in and running classes.

The time feels right and we have found an amazing venue – Sulhamstead Village Hall. Now we will be able to offer puppy classes and puppy socialisation sessions local to the puppy owners of West Berkshire (Burghfield, Mortimer, Silchester, Calcot, Tadley, Padworth). Our inaugural class will be held on 6th April!!!

 So I thought I share some information about our puppy classes and give you an insight in what happens there.

So what can you expect from our puppy classes?

Our puppy course starts at level 1 and continues through to levels 2 & 3 – each course is four weeks, as we understand that life often gets in the way and it is difficult to commit to a longer course.

This way you get plenty of support with your puppy and can take a break between levels 1, 2 & 3 if you are unable to attend them consecutively.

Our puppy classes have a rolling start date, so you do not need to wait for a particular start date and can jump straight in, once your puppy is able to go out after their vaccination course is complete.

So not only you do not waste any valuable training and socialisation time, but as an added benefit, your puppy will get exposure to more different puppies and people – great for socialisation!

What do we cover in classes?

Each week we cover a different topic, and we try and keep them as close to real life as possible, so your puppy learns valuable life skills!

Recall – one of the most important single skills to teach your puppy! If they come back when you call them, they will go out for more walks, as you will enjoy taking them out, which means you would get out more – so everyone is a winner!

Lead walking – a skill, importance of which is directly related to the size of your dog J

We also cover settling - we have a ‘pub week’ when we teach puppies to settle amongst distractions (and extra curricular practice is encouraged). This is very useful skill to have if you want to take your puppy with you to a pub, dog friendly cafe, or even friends’ house for dinner.

Another very important topic is husbandry – getting puppies used to being handled in preparation for vet and groomers’ visits. We also teach you how to check your puppy’s pulse and other vitals.

We have a meeting people topic, where we teach puppies how to greet (or not greet) people.

We work on ‘drop’ (releasing items), ‘leave’, as well as throwing in some useful tricks for good measure and more!

Who are these classes for?

All puppies (under six months old at the start of level 1) and their humans. We welcome any breed/size of puppies, as long as they have had all their vaccinations. We also do not limit the number of family members who accompany puppy to classes – so the whole family can attend!

Our classes are run by accredited trainers – Tash holds accreditations by APDT, ABTC – ATI, Ian by IMDT, GTA and ABTC-ATI and Sarah is a qualified trainer with IMDT. All three are members of The UK Dog Behaviour and Training Charter.

Why does it matter? It means that not only did we have our skills assessed by the above organisations, but also have to submit evidence of Continuous Professional Development, as well as adhere to their codes of ethics.

We look forward to meeting new puppies and their humans in April!