The following extract is taken from the information provided by Certified Clinical Animal Behaviourist, Sarah Whitehead, in the free webinar ‘Five Secrets to Successful Puppy Parties’, sponsored by Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
In theory, running puppy socialisation groups or ‘Puppy Parties’ in practice is a great idea! After all, you want your clients’ pups to grow up sociable with people and other dogs, and be confident in the surgery environment. However, in the past few years, increasing concern about canine behaviour problems means that we need to be incredibly careful when running these sessions – and making sure that we don’t cause the very problems we are trying to prevent.
One of Sarah Whitehead’s Five Secrets to Successful Puppy Parties is that ‘Pass the Puppy’ is a risky exercise…
When most people think of a Puppy Party, or a puppy session in practice, they believe that an important component of it is ‘Pass the Puppy’ – the colloquial term used to describe a handling session where the puppies are passed from owner to owner. The theory behind this is to get the puppies used to being handled and examined. However, when most people handle a puppy, they just don’t see the signs that say that the puppy is not comfortable with the situation. This is a major problem.
In those first weeks and particularly during the first couple of sessions when the puppy comes to your practice, you want that puppy to make fantastic associations with that environment and with the people there. They should feel comfortable, happy and relaxed and get rewards for good behaviour. Actually though, in the ‘Pass the Puppy’ exercise, the handlers are not usually experts; often they have never owned a dog before and may even be a little fearful of handling their own pup. So giving them someone else’s puppy is potentially a recipe for disaster! They won’t be concentrating on the puppy they are holding, and instead will be thinking about their own puppy as it is being passed around the room.
The average pet owner is unlikely to notice stress, fear or even defensive strategies that a veterinary or behavioural professional would – even if they do, they probably won’t know what to do about it – which could potentially be very damaging.
So, ‘Pass the Puppy’ is not an ideal exercise for a Puppy Party. Instead, it’s important to teach owners how to expertly handle their own puppies.
To find out more secrets to successful Puppy Parties, watch the recording of the free webinar ‘Five Secrets to Successful Puppy Parties’ by going to www.veterinarywebinars.com and entering your login details. (If you are not already a Member of Webinar Club, please click here to register as a free Silver Member and set up your login details). Then go to the Free Webinars menu tab and select the webinar from the Product Education Series section.
