Featured Class: Puppy Kindergarten

March 26, 2015 by

This is Harley! He is a three­ month old miniature poodle. A common misconception is that training your dog can only happen after six months. The truth is that dogs are constantly learning from the first moment you adopt them. That is why it is important to start training and socialization at a young age to have a happy and obedient dog in the future. Determined to start off on the right foot (or paw I should say) we started Puppy Kindergarten at Puppy Love Training.

The first week of class was a ‘people only’ day where we learned some tips and tricks to keep our puppies healthy, harley1happy, and most importantly TIRED! We also had a ‘homework’ assignment to introduce our puppies to the clicker. We were instructed to click and treat at least 10 times in a short period (two minutes) to have the dog associate the clicker with a positive reward. The clicker is used a marker that lets the dog know that it has done something correct. Your voice can be inconsistent and change depending on your mood, the words you use, the inflection, etc. The clicker is consistent every single time.

The second week was the first time we brought our puppies to class. It was very exciting to get to meet the puppies we had heard so much about during the first session. The first behavior we learned was ‘attention’. You reward your dog for looking at your face. While this might seem very simple it is an important foundation for other behaviors and obedience. If your dog is paying attention anything besides you (another dog, squirrel, child, etc.), how can you expect the dog to obey a command? By rewarding your dog when (s)he focuses on you, you are also making the obedience class more effective by helping your dog to concentrate during class.

harley2At the end of class the puppies were allowed to socialize with each other in a controlled manner. There are many different sized dogs in the class as well as different personality types. Having the introductions be controlled was important to avoid fights and boost the confidence level of insecure dogs. We look forward to class every Wednesday to visit our new friends (on both four legs and two) and to see what we will be learning next! For more information about Puppy Kindergarten click here!

 

 

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Welcome to Puppy Love!

February 16, 2012 by

Puppy Love is owned by Dr. Kay Stephens, DVM,MS, a veterinarian, dog trainer, animal behaviorist, and TAMU graduate (Class of ’79, ’80, ’83). Puppy Love specializes in “clicker training”, a positive, scientifically proven approach to training that anyone can do and every dog will love. Puppy Love has been making training your dog fun, easy, and effective since 1992.

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Why?

November 8, 2011 by

People often ask me why a veterinarian would become involved in dog training.

I practiced veterinary medicine full time for years and trained my own dogs as my hobby. As I became more serious about training my dogs, I studied and learned more and more about animal behavior, learning theory, and science based behavior modification.

What I learned both excited and depressed me. It was exciting to study the elegant and precise methods available to train animals. It was depressing because I saw the local “training classes” using rough and ineffective methods and then blaming the dogs when those methods failed.

As a veterinarian, I would see those dogs come into the veterinary clinic either out of control or slinking around in fear. The owners were angry and frustrated because they had “tried everything”, and the dogs were still misbehaving.

I finally decided that someone had to help these people and these dogs. So, in 1992 , we started Puppy Love training. In those days, we were really considered radical because almost no one in this area was using positive reinforcement or clicker training. But the methods worked and dogs learned how to behave, and people learned how to communicate with and train their own dogs.

Now, nearly 20 year and thousands of dogs later, I still get a thrill out of helping someone learn to communicate with their dog. I love seeing the “lightbulb” moment when the dog understands what we are telling him.

Today, there are quite a few trainers in town, many of whom learned to train here at Puppy Love. I think that is great. The more people we can educate about the science of animal training and the more people we can get to use positive reinforcement, the better for the dogs.

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