Re: Help With Puppy Party Organising!

Lisa Goodship — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 22:47:14 GMT

I know a lot of the food reps for example hills, depending on which foods you stock! Are really good at helping support puppy parties, providing you with literature, freebies, poster etc to advitise and use. We limited numbers and age group for ours so they don't get out of control and dogs are all of a similar size for play. We usually start with intro week where the client comes without their puppy so no distractions and tell them about the structure of the course what we will cover, find out about the puppies, where they are up to in their training, any problems, and what to do in classes, eg getting their puppy to relax and sit for a period of time whilst we discuss things eg de sexing - get them to practice this at home! Then in the classes with the pups we start with supervised play, this may include all pups off their leads or groups of pups with similar personalities eg timid together usually by the end all off together. Then get the owner to practice recall to get their dog back before settling on a lead on the floor, whilst we discussed vet related topic. Then play then talk again We also provide handouts which cover what we have discussed and a feedback form on their last visit so they can tell us what they thought. We were lucky to have behaviourists involved. We also told them them to get their puppies used to being handled, examined, making them better at the vets and a exposure chart for them to do eg meeting children, vaccums etc. Sorry its long but hope you get something out of it - phone your reps!

Re: Help With Puppy Party Organising!

wendy scott — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 22:37:35 GMT

Hi there,

I help run our practice puppy parties through an external training school which i also train at. We run a 5 week course of training with question time and then 1 week of healthcare and teeth cleaning. If you are socialising puppies it may be advantageous for a member of your team to attend a reputable trainer's puppy classes to get a feel for appropriate puppy behaviour and interaction. I would recommend Gwen Bailey puppy school affiliates as they have to work to a code of conduct and have been through training with gwen bailey.

http://www.puppyschool.co.uk/advice_information/socialisation.html

Her website has a wealth of information.

If you are sticking to veterinary specific topics, ensure you communicate to people that this is what the classes are geared toward because in the past we have had people come to class and think it is simply a free for all and since this we have made the greatest effort to make it very clear what our class content is and explain to people why we do not allow free for alls within the class..

Royal canin ran an excellent webinar by Gwen bailey if you speak to your rep they may be able to access it for you also. Not sure about cpd to make them successful per se but just doing your research and asking your clients what they require from classes is probably some key points to making them successful.

Hope this helps,

Wendy :)