Went dog training last night

It was our 6th week of puppy classes and the trainer told me I'm too soft on her and she's taking the micky out of me

One minute she's really good and does exactly what I ask her then the next she's totally ignoring me and 'showing off'!! I'm going to have to be a bit firmer with her I think.

What are your little ones like training wise and do they think they're the boss?

How old is she? Just as long as the firmness is only expressed in tone and you don't push her into a sit or down. 6 weeks is early days, it does take time. Do you practice at home? It's also a bit distracting with all the other dogs there, my traner used to say Dylan didn't like to do a down with all those big dogs present. There was a Great Dane so big I'd need a foot stool to get on him if I was even thinking about riding hi! icon_whistling

Like Pauline said there are a lot of distractions in training classes. Ebony is far better at home then in training classes, and some weeks are better then others. I felt down a lot of times where I thought that all the other dogs are doing so much better then mine and last week we had to do walk to heel individually and I saw that Ebony was not bad at all. You also need to train at home even if it is only 15 minutes a day as once a week is not enough. Don’t give up.
Sabby

Having just been through puppy class myself, I would agree with what the others have said about practicing at home for short periods every day. I also found that Charlie did better at class if we arrived early and I ran him around outside first to burn off some energy. It was a 20 minute car ride to class, so he would be rambunctious for the first half hour of class if we didn't do some running first.

I agree that practice at home every day makes the difference. Bandit is a LOADED GUN! Let me tell ya...
I am glad I have been working with him constantly, or we'd be insane. I keep treats (some dry cereal or something) on me all the time and will spring a two-minute session on him about every hour in addition to short, 5-10 minute ones once or twice a day. I am known to call him to come randomly out of the blue and then reward with a treat (he comes running now!) and we do "wait", "stand" (in place of sit since we might show and I am not supposed to teach sit for now), "down", "leave it alone", "drop it", among a few others. "heel" too, though he is pretty rarin' to go his own way outside on the leash! I just use treats a lot and he is very excited to please and get it right (to get the reward).

When I say firm I mean with my tone of voice coz my husband says I sound like I'm asking her to do something rather than commanding her to do something. She's brilliant at recall and has been since we got her really and she's good at sit and sometimes down but anything else and she just does her own thing.

I do train her at home but these things take time but I know she thinks she can get away with it and takes me for a mug

If she is food-motivated, use high-value treats (like bits of chicken) and use those to positively reinforce the training. Using chicken, I taught Bandit "spin-around" in about 2 minutes last night. Now, he is spinning like a top in hopes of chicken (I can just see that happening in the show ring!)

As she gets proficient, you can become sporadic with the treats. For now, I'd always train with them.