Hello, I have a 19 week old puppy. In the next few weeks there is an opportunity for her to join a puppy party. I will be with her and supervising all the time. Has anyone else been to one and was it a good experience for you pup? She is quite a confident puppy . Thanks for any views.
My understanding was that puppy parties were for very young puppies to be socialized, but I might have got that wrong My concern is that bigger, bouncier pups might be allowed to bully smaller quieter ones. If you supervise carefully, and are okay to leave if she gets overwhelmed, then it'll probably be fine, but I'm not really sure what she'll get out of it at that age. Interesting opportunity though, let us know what you decide!
Not sure I see the value in a puppy party. Puppy will not learn much. If lucky has good experience but will then associate that with all dogs, ie dogs = play time. Worst case you have a bully as mentioned above and issues correcting that. My limited experience is that puppies are well Socialised. If you want to interact better with an old dog who has little time for puppies. I am by no means an expert, just my advice. Better is that your pup has its best time with you not another dog. Helps with recall too
I don't think I would let my puppy go to a puppy party, I would be inclined towards enrolling in puppy classes instead. We did the wrong thing when we first got Kyko & allowed him to greet everyone, & now he loses his mind with excitement when he sees any dog. We are now slowly getting it under control, as we enrolled in a beginners class where he had to engage his brain & work in proximity to other dogs but never actually got to meet them. Now we are working on LAT training with dogs & he very very rarely gets to play with or greet dogs now. Only when he is truly calm is he allowed to play as reward, he is also a bit of a bully so regularly has to have a time out when playing. Our trainer told us we are looking at least a year before we can start to phase out the treats when we see dogs
Thanks for your replies. Gwenni meets other dogs well on and off the lead - so far. She also listens to them if they don't want to play. If they do want to play then she plays hard and I supervise all play with any dog as she can be quite persistent with less assertive pups. I guess it could go well and she could learn to be more polite or I guess she could intimidate less assertive and younger pups. What people are saying about just keeping calm around other dogs is an interesting point, she is like this with adult dogs if they are calm. I guess its the calm end of socialisation we want to reinforce not the fun fun fun one. I guess I'm thinking puppies need to play and learn so much from this. She goes to puppy classes and loves them - she is the only one allowed to mix with all dogs so far. It's good to have other perspectives, still thinking!
Can you find out how this is structured? For example our puppy classes ended with playtime where the trainer had pairs of puppies play together while the rest of us held our dogs waiting for our turn. Trainer pointed out body language, appropriate play, etc. It was very helpful and there was no bullying.
So I have thought about what everyone has said. I have decided not to take her. She is pretty good meeting dogs on a walk but will go for it and take advantage of less assertive pups ! So on balance it’s the calm and respectful Gwenni I want not the cheeky one who knows she can do what she likes if they are not assertive dogs. Thank you all
I think you've done the right thing there, Kyko has all the right moves when meeting a dog gets low, rolls over etc, but then he gets up and all he wants is to wrestle. I wish I'd been more careful when I first got him but we live & learn. Funnily enough when we went to classes he was just about 7 months old & the youngest by a few months in the class & he was so well behaved we were shocked. Outside of class he was still like a Tasmanian devil.
