Puppy parties/Classes

Re: Puppy parties/Classes

Nicola Jamieson — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:35:43 GMT

We do a one off puppy party aswell where puppies come in between vaccinations. The numbers do vary from week to week. We dont charge for puppy parties. I often think about offering them as a course as i feel it would benefit clients more, although i do recommend they go on to puppy training classes.

Re: Puppy parties/Classes

bongo — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:06:17 GMT

We never did a course of parties just a one off each week. We had a list where we would get people to put their names down, normally after 1st vacc appt. If we got over 6 pups the rest would go on top of the list for the following week. Ours were free, we didnt charge for them. We mainly covered behaviour and training because all the other stuff they could discuss with a nurse in a free consult or the vet would discuss this with the owner in consult.

Re: Puppy parties/Classes

johannapage — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:35:50 GMT

Thanks for the reply!

We have always charged - £5 a night - and had a course of 5 weeks.

The problem is I feel its really important to do basic training with the puppies as well such as sits, downs, recall, heelwork etc - as wella s the vet side of things, parasites, vaccinatons, insurance etc.

Our Puppy Clinics are so good the majority of the clients coming to puppy parties are already uptodate with their pups flea/worm tx, most are chipped, insured etc so it takes up less time discussing it in PP as its already been done!! We are now discussing more indepth things such as changes in the law, the need for tags on collars, fines regarding the DDA etc

I dont mind repeating myself but I want to limit the amount of puppies that come as I feel 10 is too many and it seems a bit pointless if only 2 show up -

Hence me wondering how well it works charging in advance for the 5 sessions? (or however many you do)

Re: Puppy parties/Classes

Katie Mansfield — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:58:47 GMT

I've only ever seen it run as a course of 6 parties - that's at 3 different practices. Also the numbers were capped at all 3 practices so it wasn't chaos!! (Different number of pups at each practice because they were all held in the waiting room which is size dependent).

The practices I've been at where they did puppy parties didn't charge though, they made money buy selling puppy food, toys, grooming equipment, wormers, flea tx and recommending preventative surgery. I guess if you're charging now your practice might lose out if you change and have fewer puppies attending.

Personally I think running it as a course is easier as you can talk on a separate topic each week and don't end up repeating yourself to the same clients. That does though mean some puppies will be put on a waiting list and I guess that may be difficult if you see a lot of puppies. I suppose you could end up in the situation of having to run parties on more than one evening a week if that was the case.

Good luck!!

K x