Puppy classes are great -but puppy consults give you the knowledge and training theory that classes and other trainers don’t teach you .One to one consults give you individual unlimited attention and enable you to start work on all your issues immediately . Socialization is NOT about puppies playing together , but about learning to be calm and focused on owner in the presence of triggers . Puppy classes often miss the opportunity to provide positive associations with other dogs for fearful pups , and in the case of pups who are outgoing and dive into play , you may be building an expectation that whenever your dog sees another dog it will play with it – and if it isn’t able to it becomes frustrated .
Reactive fearful and aggressive dogs don’t do well in classes as there are too many triggers for them . Bringing a fearful reactive dog to a class is like tipping a bucket of spiders over the head of a person afraid of spider s! “Flooding” your dog by putting it in a situation where it is exposed to triggers and cant get away will increase reactivity. Dogs must be calm to learn new behaviors . You must teach the behavior you want by way of reactivity techniques before you can ask for it in the presence of distractions . Teaching your dog the behavior you want in a consult enables it to do the behavior in a class situation .