Last night was the first night of "Puppy Preschool"

When I found out there was free puppy play time I expressed my concern since the two dogs Kaos plays with the most are Dante and a friend's adult Bernese Mountain Dog, I knew Kaos would totally overwhelm a small breed puppy in play.
To my delight, they replied that the other two pups that had signed up at that point were a Lab and a Giant Schnauzer.

So I get there and I see a couple with 2 kids getting out of a vehicle with what looks like a small breed puppy and my thought was "Uh-oh"
Then I saw a large Lab puppy heading in and I let go of my Uh-oh thought.

Things were a little hectic at the front counter for check in, so I just looped around the outside a bit waiting for it to clear some before taking Kaos in.

Turns out (of course) that others had signed up since I had so this is who was there:
Kaos (14 weeks)
Boxer Puppy (13 weeks)
Lab Puppy (18 weeks)
Lab Puppy (10 weeks – this is who I saw get out of the car)
Giant Schnauzer (13 weeks)
Not sure breed (not sure weeks)

And then there are 2 pups that weren’t there last night that will be starting next week.

So here was my thought when I saw all these pups:
Oh yeah, 18 week old Lab and Giant Schnauzer and Kaos are going to be perfect.

Boy was I wrong. The poor Lab was not having anything to do with free puppy play and was obviously very distressed (if I had been owner I would have removed my puppy from room, if I was leading class I would have portioned off the two Labs since one was so distressed and the other so tiny) and the Giant Schnauzer was just not really interested in playing.

But the Boxer? He and Kaos had the BEST time and played very similarly, feet and mouths.

Since I signed up for the class I had visions of Kaos running amok amongst well behaved puppies, telling everyone within ear shot about how much fun she’s having, and, well, just kind of creating chaos

Wrong. Her and the Boxer played very well, I did have to remove her from the vicinity of the distressed Lab as well as the tiny Lab each once but other than that she just had a great old time. The kids that came with their parents learned fairly quickly that sitting on the floor wasn’t a great idea as she attempted drive by kisses and instead just kind of thumped into them.

The lessons:
Name recognition
Sit
Stand

All of these Kaos does fairly well with no distractions – so this is great for us to really get to work with those distractions.

Since I was already using a clicker the instructor introduced them early on in the hour so those that didn’t know what they were knew what the heck was going on in my corner.

All in all – a very good night and I’m very happy with Kaos.

I will say I expected a sacked out puppy when I got home last night, but as soon as we walked in the door she was trying to torment Dante. HOWEVER…She’s been very content today to just lay on the bed here in my Study while I work.

Ok, now to rant.

The 18-week-old Lab is HUGE and I mean HUGE. The owners seemed quite proud of how big he is.
Here’s the issue.
This puppy is HUGE because he’s FAT!
I could actually see fat jiggling on his side when he was playing with the kids that were sitting on the floor.

☹
Jiggling fat on an 18-week old Lab puppy

Sounds like you had a great class!

And the lab pup, very sad that they will kill him with kindness. Maybe the instructor can give a short little 'class' on the importance of weight control, limited jumping etc on developing puppies. Maybe she can tell the class how to determine if puppy is overweight. Perhaps the pup had a growth spurt and they increased food and then he slowed back down again.

That isn't me swearing, it was a that came over from Word and when I viewed the post the remained - now it's turned into what I was saying in my head but not typing

Funny - when I was reading the list, I thought about the boxer, now there's the playmate for Kaos.

There was a white boxer pup on the Puppy Bowl and he was so cute! (Um, but I don't want one, since I like my dogs to grow up by age 2 or 3...or 4.)

Sounds like a good class, but I agree more could have been done to care for the shyer labs.

And the over weight one? He will not have a chance for good body weight as an adult lab. That is so sad.

Keep us posted each week?

Fat dogs make me so so sad.

Sounds like a great class for Kaos so far, though. Glad she found an appropriate playmate too.

That's funny Barb, there is a really fat chow/lab mix in our class. I thought the same thing I hate it when people let their dogs get fat especially when they are so young.

Glad you guys had fun in puppy class ... there's a boxer puppy in our class and he's crazy!!! It's fun seeing other people and their puppies ... doesn't it make you so happy to have Kaos? I always feel so proud when we go, cause I think Enzo is the best!

It was a fun class and yesterday was so nice with such a quiet puppy!!!
She got to spend the entire day here in my study with me while I worked,

Today she's in her crate

That is my hope, to use this thread as a log of our progress

Class #2 last night
The Lessons:
Recap from last weeks lessons
Beginning of recall (run and call)
Down
Sit at heel position

Kaos already knows down in low distraction, so again good work with distractions.
I've worked a bit with her sitting in heel position, but not a lot so this was a bit new to her. She wanted to come to the front a couple of times, but quickly realized I wanted her beside me.

She was so funny on her "run and call" she started to leap at me when she got to me and almost made me fall, I think we need more work on a calmer response - though I love her enthusiasm!!

New puppies in class:
Rhodesian Ridgeback
Keeshond (this puppy is the cutest ball of fur!)

There was also a gentleman there that just got a 3 month old Doberman on Tuesday who will be joining the class next week.


Puppy Playtime:
The 18-week old Lab is still terrified during playtime, he and the now 11 week old lab were partitioned off but you could tell he still wasn't comfortable.


Kaos and the Boxer puppy didn't play quite as much last night, she spent some of the first part of the time sniffing around the room, quite focused.
She and the Ridgeback had a lot of fun.

I have noticed lately that Kaos is an "Excitement Hackler", I think it worried a couple of the other puppy owners when her fur went up.

I am again very pleased with Kaos