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Puppy Head Start

It’s never too early to start training. We’ll show you how to get it right the first time and prevent the bad habits.

Each session is one hour and are usually a week or so apart. These sessions can be done in your home and garden, or a local park. You will also get access to Training Video Tutorials to help guide you through your training plan.

Ask Cathy about availability.

Payment is required before the session, click the button below to book the sessions. After booking, Cathy will contact you to arrange a date/time for the sessions.

£180.00£450.00

In Person training

You brought your new puppy home, you knew it was not going to be easy, but you were not expecting this much drama. Your puppy is now causing chaos, stealing your shoes, chewing everything, running around biting your ankles, unable to settle on their own, getting overexcited and peeing on the rug!

This doesn’t mean that they’re bad pups; it just means that we need to show them how to interact with our world.

That’s what one-to-one sessions are for! A focussed session of this sort can help to address specific problem behaviours. There are many puppy problems we can help you with such as:

  • Biting and nipping everyone and everything
  • Toileting in the house
  • Unable to settle
  • Chewing
  • Stealing items
  • And so much more
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Cathy Tse and Rocket Golden Working Cocker Spaniel November 2020

My puppy is a bit older, can we still have puppy training?

You may have thought you had training done and dusted after 6 weeks, then your puppy starts ignoring recall, jumps all over guests which used to be cute however now they are big and muddy it is not so desirable. They may be pushing the boundaries and seem to have forgotten all of their training! This is adolescence! Quite often it can be more challenging than those early puppy struggles.

You may now be seeing problem behaviours such as barking on lead if they are not allowed to say hi to the other dog.

Or perhaps you rescued an older puppy that did not have any previous training.

Don’t worry, it’s never too late to improve our puppy’s behaviour and turn those struggles into strengths. With the games based training we can teach dogs and puppies of all ages the key life skills that were missing at the start.

Not only that, our training techniques will actually strengthen your relationship with your puppy!

Wherever you’re starting from, we’ll get the ball rolling – and, with a little patience, we’ll build real, positive changes in your dog’s behaviour.

The one-to-one training sessions can be in the comfort of your own home, or when necessary, outside in your local area. We will work on a tailored plan that will focus on improving the key underlying struggles.

Socialisation: How to do it right.

We have been told by many that when you get a puppy, you need to meet hundreds of dogs, people, children, babies, cows, horses, bikes, trains, cars, pushchairs, walking sticks, men with beards, visit hundreds of different new environments……..the list goes on and on!

However, this can not only be overwhelming for you as an owner but also for your puppy!

It can cause more harm than good if we are not careful, in some cases your pup will end up being nervous of these things, and in other cases they learn that they get to meet everyone and everything and become extremely frustrated if they are not allowed.

We want to build resilience, and the ability to bounce back from things that might startle or worry them, but we don’t want to over do it so they become fearful. Be choosy with your puppy’s greetings and never overwhelm them.

We can show you how to grow your puppy’s confidence so they are cool, calm and collected in the face of novelty and new situations. We can never prepare them for every single encounter they may face in their lives but we can shape their brains to make great choices in the face of novelty and distractions.

cathy with sunshine working cocker spaniel dog at devon dogs

The power of optimism!

To create an optimistic dog, it really can be quite simple. Along with the fab training games, you can use life as it happens! You don’t need to go looking for novelty; real life should provide plenty of it.

At Horton Dogs, we teach puppies and dogs to be comfortable around other dogs and new environments while still being able to focus on their owners when called for. This is where group classes work wonders – they provide plenty of novelty, and they help to teach our dogs that they don’t have to worry about or interact with everything around them – they can have fun with their owners instead!

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