Not the experience I wanted for Bella.

I was so excited about taking Bella to puppy pre-school but it was horrible. She has been socialised but today she became very timid. Just when she started to play and sniff a bit she was attacked by a staffy pup. The video here shows the darker staffy being rough, it was at this point I stopped the video just after I stopped it the dog came back and attacked her, causing her to yelp and run away with her tail between her legs. :x

[video=facebook;10150684477222646]http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150684477222646&saved[/video]

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I had really high expectations for puppy preschool too! Sonny had been around a couple of our friend's dogs before we got him started in classes, so we assumed he would be fine, but he was also very timid at first. We had all big puppies in our class including a chocolate lab, burmese mountain dog, rhodesian ridgeback and a great dane! Sonny was very shy our first three classes. Our trainer told us not to push him and let him come out on his own time. She also was really careful about not letting the big dogs trample Sonny during free time. It took awhile, but for the last three classes he did great and played with the other big puppies. I would say just hang in there and hopefully it will get better. I think it can be really overwhelming at first for the puppies. Hopefully your trainer will have some ideas about monitoring the play time or help intervene if some of the other dogs are being too rough with Bella. Keep us updated on your next class. Good Luck!

Thanks, Bella has been socialised with Benny and Otis. One is big and one small. I am also angry because I swear we were told 4 classes but apparently there are only 3! At $110 for 3 lessons I was feeling very ripped off! I really want to dutch the next two because we didn't learn anything.

I'm sorry Alana,

Being an assistant trainer in a puppy class I mixed views on socialization classes. We run a 6 week course for 40 pounds and teach owners how to teach the basic commands from sit, down, recall, walking on a lead and how to tolerate being handled by strangers and groomed. Now we dont do off lead time what we do is help the owners get the attention they want from their puppies with all that distraction in the hall. Most of the owner's will let their puppies play together in the 10 or so minutes before the class starts which is up to them.

I was at the park the other day and my Charlie is kept on q flex lead as he can't be trusted when a young and playful lab came over jumping all over Charlie and he screamed and screamed. He was simply terrified and it probably hurt him too being that he was half the size and he is a 3 year old dog.

Well now I really feel ripped off. You give double the classes for less $$. Seriously this was the second lesson (I got het squeezed in) first 10 minutes was admin, then introduce pups while sitting in a semi circle on chairs, then socialise pup for 15 minutes, then sit, stay, drop, then sit down and talk about potty training, I told her that Bella waits for me to take her outside and she said "Wean her off that" then we talked about food and why canned food is bad then there was more free play.

I agree with Karen I have never taken mine to puppy socialisation classes only to classes like Karen mentioned where they learn basic commands and are on the lead under control, before the class starts the owners normally let the dogs sniff each other on the lead and have a bit of a play if that’s what the puppy and the other owners are happy with. I hear horror stories all the time where the puppies are left to do what they want and the little ones get bullied by the bigger ones at the so called puppy socialisation classes.
I have been to have a look and trained at most of our dog training clubs in our area (about 7 venues) from puppy classes, obedience and agility. Out of the seven I would only use 2 for puppy training.

Hey Alana...sending you a PM now about puppy classes in Sydney as I am not sure if we can talk about the names of companies/people or not but I had a wonderful experience with Brooklyn and used the same trainer for three rounds of adolescence training too. She has also become a great person to lean on with questions and advice throughout Brooky growing up. But like any training session, you take what works for you and your dog. I will PM now with her info...we are not too far apart so who knows, she might at least have a recco for you if she does not do sessions close to you. A good trainer is invaluable to raising a puppy....but everyone is right, they are hard to find!