SIRIUS® PUPPY Part 1 - For 10-18 week old puppies
Classes are taught entirely off-leash to maximize dog-dog play (learning bite inhibition) and socialization with people, especially strangers, men and children. Puppies are trained within the play session so that 1. Owners may learn to calm down and control their puppies when excited and distracted and 2. Play maybe used as the ultimate reward for each short training interlude.
Early puppy classes are essential to ensure that puppies develop bite inhibition and become people-friendly, dog-friendly and mannerly around people and other dogs. Learning bite inhibition and socialization are easy and enjoyable endeavors in puppyhood, but they are extremely developmentally time-sensitive. If your puppy does not acquire reliable bite inhibition in puppyhood, he will become potentially dangerous as an adult. If your puppy is not thoroughly socialized in puppyhood, remedial socialization will take many months (and maybe years) and essentially, your dog will never be the relaxed and confident dog that s/he could have been.
A large part of the Puppy Part 1 syllabus comprises teaching basic manners in a distracted setting. Lure/reward training is simple, easy and extremely effective for training young puppies and so, starting the very first week, we begin to progressively phase out the need for food lures and rewards so that your dog learns to respond reliably whether you have food or not. Puppy Part 1 lays the groundwork for the reliable verbal and hand signal, off-leash control that you will master in Puppy Part 2.
On the other hand, we actively promote the continued use of food treats for classical conditioning (forming positive associations) - to teach dogs to thoroughly enjoy the company of people and other dogs. For example, have every visitor to your house handfeed a treat, and have anyone who would like to pet your puppy on walks to handfeed a treat (and train your dog to be comfortable and confident around people).
As part of your SIRIUS® enrollment you will be provided with online access to multimedia training support to ensure that you learn how to prevent the development of (or resolve) utterly predictable (yet surprisingly common) puppy and adolescent behavior and temperament problems. Sadly, easily preventable behavior problems, such as housesoiling, destructive chewing, excessive barking and separation anxiety are the most common terminal illnesses for adolescent dogs - causing far too many to be confined to the yard... then the basement... and then a cage in an animal shelter.
Puppyhood is the time to rescue unwanted adult shelter dogs. Please take full advantage of all of our free educational, puppy training resources and make sure that your puppy gets to live in your home for the rest of his life.
To facilitate learning, owners are provided with two class textbooks. Owners may download a free copy of Dr. Dunbar's AFTER You Get Your Puppy at the time of registration and they may watch training videos and listen to audio lectures from the free multimedia TRAINING TEXTBOOK at http://dogstardaily.com/training.
Requirements: Pups must be between 10 and 18 weeks of age at the start date of class with 2 DHLPP vaccinations, one of which must have been administered after 8 weeks of age but at least 7 days prior to the first session
Registration Fee: $200 Browse for Classes