Many people think puppy classes are about letting puppies off their leads to play with other puppies. In reality it’s almost the opposite, if we let puppies play like that then they pick up on bad habits from each other rather than learning how they should behave around adult dogs. Adult dogs don’t like being jumped on or having paws on their face like puppies love to do!

If you are planning on getting a new puppy or already have a puppy and you are interested in researching good classes, go and watch one! (a good class will have no problem with that). A puppy class shouldn't be too big and puppies should be fairly young still, i.e under 20 weeks. It should look like the puppies are having a lovely time with their owners. In class, puppies shouldn't be made to do anything they aren't sure of, some pups might just want to watch and not join in, and definitely no physical manouvers on dogs i.e. pushing their bottoms down into a sit or a down or handlers tugging on leads.

To me, a good puppy class should have: - exposure to fun things (i.e toys/ball pools) - bits of training (although I would expect you might learn ‘how’ to do something in class it's always better to practise quietly at home without all the exciting distractions) - short (seconds) introductions to other puppies while on a very loose lead and then pups happily encouraged away to be back with their human - all of the above in short duration to keep puppies interest and to prevent them getting overwhelmed.

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Why not come along and watch one of the Puppy Life Skills classes and see what you think?