Avonside Online Academy

A new puppy is an exciting adventure for the whole family - but it can also feel daunting especially if you have never owned a dog before.   Have no fear - the Puppy Course is here!

Created by an experienced dog breeder and Pro Dog Trainer - the Puppy Package has everything you need to ensure puppy's first 60 days as a much fun and stress-free as possible.

The Puppy Package includes: The Puppy Course, Socialisation in Isolation and A Walk in the Park - worth £93 all together.

The Puppy Course

Through the Puppy Course, your instructor Lydia is on hand to help with all the information and advice that you need. Including:

Before Puppy Arrives:

• Check if your family is ready with a fun quiz
• Know what equipment to get for puppy

When Puppy first arrives:

• Stress-free sleeping
• Toilet training tips
• Play and bond with Puppy
• Get your pup a Vet

As puppy settles in:

• How to protect your furniture and fingers from teething damage
• Teaching puppies and children to play nicely together
• Training puppy before he is allowed out and about
• How to stop unwanted behaviour
• How to prepare for walks with collar, harness and leads

Looking after puppy:

• How to keep puppy clean and healthy
• Understand the Law on microchips and tags

When you buy the Puppy Package you also get A Walk in the Park worth £37 for Free.

A Walk in the Park

One of the biggest reasons a person gets a dog is to enjoy walks with them... and one of the biggest training struggles many new owners encounter is walking with their dog. 

It is an important part of training a dog and it is never too late to restart your training for walks. 

We teach you to use games that you play at home at first to change the way your dog views their time on the lead. And then you can play the same games out and about to help the learning transfer fully to the walk experience effectively. 

This course also includes advice for strategies to employ when you are on a walk and encounter a struggle. including a bonus teaching on reactive dogs. 

When you purchase this course you are invited to join the Faithful Friends private facebook coaching group where you will receive regular extra teaching tips and you can ask questions and get specific advice for your situation. 

THIS IS MORE than a VIDEO COURSE it is an open door to further advice and help to fully resolve your dog's walking issues once and for all. This is not like a book of lessons it is a living thing with extra advice available whenever you want it.

When you buy the Puppy Package you also get Socialisation in Isolation worth £19 for Free.

Socialisation in Isolation

Socialise your puppy during lockdown - teach your dog how to be confident and optimistic in every situation. 

Not just a Video course this one comes with a trainer attached! I provide ongoing help & support through a private Facebook group and email for every course.

For decades dog owners have been told that socialising their puppy in the early months of life is essential.

New puppy owners are often given lists to check off every type of eventuality the dog might one day encounter and they work their way through the list diligently... Faithfully believing that these early puppy encounters will set them up for a lifetime of good encounters.

BUT in reality - it doesn’t quite work like that. And typical socialisation of puppies in this way does not always accomplish what the owner hopes. What can go wrong with this method?

1.     You could meet every type of human, animal, vehicle and dog in your puppy’s early development, tick off the whole list. But then one day, out of the blue, a man with a beard and sunglasses wearing a high viz vest and a wizards hat comes by riding a scooter and tooting a horn. Your dog goes bonkers... Why? - Because you never trained for that!

2.      Whilst good experiences of other humans and dogs can be very valuable BAD experiences of other humans and dogs can be detrimental to the puppy’s development. With the best will in the world you cannot control every situation and you cannot guarantee that a meet up with a friend and their (usually lovely) dog will produce the results you hope for. A bad experience teaches the dog way more than a good experience does and sadly a dog that has several bad socialisation experiences can end up with a fear or reactive problem that needs even more training to solve.

3.     Puppies love to play and mouth each-other, they grab tails and roll around with each other they chase and jump on one another. This is lovely to watch... but not all dogs like to be mouthed, grabbed, chased etc... Some puppies who are “socialised” a lot and given free reign to play boisterously whilst young with other puppies might not be learning nice social skills. (socialising with some adult dogs MIGHT help the puppy learn what’s ok and what’s going too far but that will only be to that particular adult dog’s tastes).

So – if traditional socialisation isn’t the best approach – what is?

Dogs, like humans, all have personalities. And like humans their personalities are not set in stone and they can be changed. A human will “work” on their anger and become a more pleasant person. Or a pessimistic person may take hold of their thinking and literally train their brain to start to think differently – learning to see the positive rather than defaulting to the negative thought processes in new situations. In the same way an owner can help their dog “work” on the things that will develop the best personality traits for the dog to cope well with everything life might throw at it. 

It takes at least 3 weeks (21 days) to make a change like this in both humans and dogs.

At this time of lockdown and social distancing it has become very difficult to “socialise” our puppies in the above usual way. Personally, I think that this could actually be beneficial for your puppy. No encounters, means, no BAD encounters! Dogs do not need to be running and rolling about with each other to learn to live alongside each other. Instead of lots of experiences of lots of society we can give our dogs a much more valuable gift... we can grow concepts in their puppy brains that will keep them happy and comfortable in ALL situations that they may one day encounter.