[Janev1000]

What a laugh! We had our first puppy party this week. When I arrived at the vets they were all laughing and saying how excited they were as this was the first week that they were having 'Cheese' & 'Biscuit' at the party as the other puppy was called Cheese!! It was so much fun, together with the firework CD in the background. Took me back to the days of 'mother & baby' groups!!

 

[Moo]

That sounds brilliant! How did you find the puppy party? We have signed our puppy up to go to her first Puppy Party in December.. I bet she is going to LOVE it!!!

 

[Janev1000]

Puppy party was excellent. It was the first one so Biscuit was shy at first and then got used to it by the end. They had some gentle CD sounds in the background which I thought at first was whale music to keep it all calm. However, it gradually got louder and it turned out it was fireworks!! We were there for 45 mins and each week there is a different training and health tip. This week was teaching the 'sit' command and how to give your puppy a health check at home.

 

[Janev1000]

Sorry - realise I had already mentioned the CD - must be my new 'puppy' brain!!

 

[Moo]

I understand the 'puppy brain'... I have felt as close to a new mother as I am going to get (for a while at least!) having Poppy. That set up sounds similar to what our Vet explained in regards to the puppy parties they do. Our vet is Swanbridge Vet Group. Maybe its a standard set up wherever you go? I have never gone to one so am clueless. Will you be putting your pup in a foundation course as well or will you rely on what they teach you at the puppy parties (and of course what you teach at home)?

 

[Janev1000]

Hi Marcia Is foundation the same as obedience If so, then I am going to look at what's around. However, it's definitely going to be a case of finding one that uses voices/hand signals, rather than clickers, as although I am sure they are excellent, I can't handle adding an extra factor to think about into the training process. I can just see myself forgetting where I put it all the time. At least I can't lose my hand!! They did recommend obedience classes at the puppy party as it is just very basic training and more about socialisation.

 

[Moo]

Yeah I think it's an obedience course - I hope so anyway because we have signed up for it! I also prefer to use verbal and hand commands. We volunteer with the Hearing Dogs on weekends which is where we first learned about various hand signals that they use. Seeing how handy (pardon the pun) the hand gestures are in busy situations, louder situations etc, made us decide on this method of training as well. We have managed to teach her how to SIT with a verbal command and also the hand gesture but that's as far as we have gotten! I'm hoping the classes will help us with the rest.