If you have recently completed puppy pre-school classes with your new puppy and wondering how to go further with training your puppy, and you live in Perth, Western Australia … then read on. . .

“NOW THAT YOU HAVE BEEN TO PUPPY

PRE SCHOOL WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?…”

TRAIN A PUP TIME introduces the NEW

ULTIMATE  KINDERPUPPY   COURSE!

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From:  Carolyn Read

Perth, Western Australia

Dear Friend

If you have already been through a puppy pre-school programme you will be well aware now of the importance of socialising and training your puppy to be the dog you want him to turn out to be.  Disasters can happen if rules and leadership skills are not established straight away.  A puppy that learns to enjoy being with people and other dogs, plus who obeys you and has household manners is a real pleasure to have around.  That DOES NOT happen automatically!  It takes time and patience to train the puppy to do what you want and learn what you don’t want.  The sooner you start training your puppy effectively, the better!

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Socialisation classes are just the beginning.  The next step is to learn how to train your puppy basic obedience skills that will be necessary for everyday living.  Perhaps you have trained a dog before – how long ago?  Training methods have changed dramatically in the last 15 years or so and it has now become evident that the kinder and less forceful methods work most effectively.  How far would you like to go with your obedience training?  Do you just want your puppy to turn into a well-behaved dog?  Or would you like to go on and get involved in dog competition sports and activities.  The options are endless…well, almost – you can choose to just do the basics or participate in dog sport competitions.

So, perhaps you have had dogs in the past that you have trained to do the basics or maybe you are more experienced and trained your dog to a more advanced level of obedience?  That is great if you have some understanding of training your dog.  You might like to ask yourself the following:

• What methods did you use to train your previous dogs?

• Was it using choke chains and praise plus correction (which can be quite harsh)?

• Are you aware that there are much kinder methods for training your puppy basic obedience?

Or, is this your first dog and you’re not sure how to train your puppy to respond when you ask?  You may or may not be aware that recent Australian statistics show that there are more dogs that get ‘put down’ do so because of bad behaviour than any other health issue!  This is scary!  People go out and get a dog and don’t bother to socialise or train the puppy and then end up with a major problem on their hands that they can’t control and so the dog is the one that suffers.   Not his fault he hasn’t been taught how to behave!

So what are the real basic obedience skills you may need?  Here is a list of what we think are the most important:

Puppy’s attention – if you can’t get your puppy to pay attention then you certainly won’t be able to get him/her to do anything else;

Sit, drop and stand – if you can get the puppy to obey these cues then you will be able to do a whole lot more.

Puppy recall or come when called – this is the most imperative skill you need to train your dog to do and could potentially save your dog’s life.

Walk on a loose lead / heel at side – makes life so much easier when walking your dog if he/she walks nicely on a lead with no pulling.

Stay (either in a sit, drop or stand position) – certainly teaches a dog manners and is another safety skill.

Even if you go no further with training your puppy if you can establish these obedience skills effectively you will have a dog who will at least listen to you and be on the way to establishing a level of respect.  These basic obedience skills are easy enough for the children to learn how to implement so your puppy will learn to respect the children as well.

Why choose Train A Pup Time?

Our classes are small enough that you will get personalised and individual attention (maximum of 6 per class).

This is a 5 week programme to help you get on the right track with your initial basic obedience training.  It will give you a good grounding in effective training principles if you decide to go on to do further training.

We recognise that every dog, like people, are individuals and need to be treated as such.  These classes are  small so that clients will receive individual attention on the things they may need more assistance with.

Going from puppy pre-school classes to large dog club classes can be overwhelming for young puppies.  This also allows your puppy to learn under mild distraction without an overwhelming environment with multiple classes and large numbers of dogs.

This KinderPuppy Course will bridge that gap so you are not waiting around for weeks before being able to join a dog club or other dog training programme and leave you wondering what to do whilst watching your puppy’s behaviour deteriorate.

What can I expect to learn?

The 5 week course will cover the following:

• The Basics of Clicker Training – clicker training is certainly not the be all and end all, however it is the principles of clicker training which can be so useful and effective in training your puppy to perform new behaviours.  We will go through a step by step process of how to encourage puppies to think about what they are doing and use the clicker to reinforce those behaviours that we like.  The clicker replaces the voice and therefore any emotion and frustration is removed from the reinforcement process.   You will learn each week to build on what was covered in the previous week and put it together by training the puppy to perform a trick using clicker and no voice. 

• Eye Contact – you will have learnt a little about getting focus and attention in the puppy pre-school classes.  This will take you to the next level whereby we start with lures and then progress to having mild distractions to the point where puppies ‘check in’ with you.  Reinforcing those ‘check in’ moments will help you and your puppy connect and work together.  We give you some games you can play with your puppy to enhance this.
• Target Touch – this is a great game to play, especially when you may want to keep your dog from being distracted from something else that may be going on.  During this course we just cover the basics of target touching your hand and progress to a toy or ‘target stick’.
• Come When Called – this is the most important of the basic obedience exercises that puppies need to learn.  Through training your puppy to come to you when you call, you are giving him/her the freedom to run free in public places, such as the beach or park, and know that you still have control.  With the Government Dog Act being quite strict as far as ‘aggressive incidents’ go, it is mandatory that if you dog is off lead that you be able to call him/her back to you.  A dog can be reported as being aggressive even if he/she doesn’t actually touch anyone!  Over these 5 weeks you will learn how to effectively and kindly train your puppy that coming back to you is a great thing.
• Walking Nicely on the Lead and Heelwork - during the first couple of weeks you will learn how to train your puppy to walk nicely on a lead.  This makes life so much easier than having to control a dog pulling the lead constantly.  We will build this up to walking at heel which is right next to your leg.  When you are walking your dog it is not necessary and not fair to have him/her in heel position the whole time, however if you do want to go on and do further obedience or sport training then ‘heel’ will be something you require.
• Sit, Drop and Stand Positions with Stay – you will also learn how to cue your dog the basic positions of sit, drop and stand.  Once those have been achieved you can train the puppy to “stay”.  Once again there will be some games you can play to enhance this behaviour.  The stay exercise is also a potential life-saver.

What else can I expect?

The classes are designed so that you can learn the above in step by step processes.  You will be emailed or given a copy of these step by step processes to help you practise at home between classes.  Not only do they have the steps written in simple format, with easy to understand instructions, but there are suggestions of what to try should you come across any problems during the training process and how to overcome them.  Each week you will be given some homework and goals to aim to achieve for each exercise so you will be able to monitor your progress.  If you work with this a little each day consistently you will be able to see your progression.

You will be given a clicker as a part of the course.  You will need to supply a few of your own items such as the puppy’s favourite toy and food bowl (we will use this with the ‘Come When Called’ exercise), high value food treats.

What is this investment going to cost?

$150.00 to participate in this course only – includes 5 weeks of one hour basic obedience training classes

$220.00 to combine the Puppy Basic Package and KinderPuppy Course – includes up to 5 weeks of puppy pre-school classes and 5 weeks of one hour basic

obedience classes.  That is a saving of  $30.00!

This can also be combined with the Pack Leader Package and the Top Dog Package!  Prices on application.

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