Puppy School is a great start in your puppy's life education but ideally it should be followed by a Level 1 Basic Manners, Obedience & Socialisation or a Juvenile dog course program. This would provide strategies, life skills and knowledge for dog owners to handle their dog in various daily situations in life that they may encounter. Owners would be able to learn about dog body language, how dogs should meet politely, loose lead walking, recall and so forth...Juvenile dogs can be very excitable and they have lots of energy. If that energy isn't properly channeled they could easily turn to destructive and nuisance behaviour. We can give you the right tools and dog training strategies to approach this period of your dog's life. So Puppy School and a Level 1 Basic Manners & Obedience course set the right foundation from the start.

Longer working hours, economic recession times, med and high density population in urban areas of Melbourne and houses been built with much smaller size backyards than before partially due to demand for smaller house blocks in residential housing development areas and popular trend for townhouses and units with small courtyards - have a huge impact on the way our pets live. Our dogs are getting less and less space for exercise in their own house backyards. And many people can't find the time to take them out on proper walks, to the dog park, the beach, the woods and to the bush for a run. So these dogs are getting terribly bored at home with nothing  to do and nuisance behaviour like excessive barking, digging and destructive habits can be generated from lack of proper physical and mental stimulation in their lives. People should ideally research about which type of dog would be suitable for their lifestyle and family situation before they act on impulse and decide to buy a dog without much previous thought or consideration. We all love pets and dogs but responsible pet ownership is vital in todays' society. We have a duty of care with our pets. They have special needs and we need to learn and inform ourselves about them. I work as a dog walker and trainer and there are few areas in which if you walk a dog on the streeet path you'd have most of the dogs on that strip barking very loud at anyone passing by, not simply been territorial about their house but highly reactive to the sight of any dog going past, not friendly at all. It's getting much worse very quickly. I remember few years back when I'd go past many houses and the dog inside the front garden would come towards the front fence wagging its tail to say a friendly 'hi' to the dog passing by. This doesn't seem to occur very often anymore. Are these dogs meeting and greeting other dogs out there? Or are they only been lead walked on the streets and are not been given the chance to interact with other canines? Why is this happening?

It would be a great idea for the first time puppy owners when they got the new puppy that they used the services of a dog trainer to help settling puppy in the new home and get things right from the start, specially if family has little kids at home. It would make life much easier and it would avoid problems and of puppy getting bad habits while young. Puppies learn very fast and the earlier you start training them the better. A private consultation to the family home would be strongly recommended followed by enrolling puppy in  a puppy pre-school course by a qualified Delta Society dog trainer. So puppy would learn basic commands and he'd have the first contact with other puppies and start nice dog interaction through puppy play.

I am not particularly found of the idea of giving pets to people and kids as Xmas gifts.

Pets are a long term commitment and people should buy them after giving the idea some serious thought and not to buy them on impulse. When someone buys a pet they need to consider not only the purchase cost but:

- DOGS: feeding cost, dogs need to be walked everyday otherwise they may show some nuisance behaviour issues like - excessive barking, digging the backyard, chewing things - cost of occasional visits to a vet, dogs need toys, a kennel,  a bed, dog leads, worming and vaccinations, to be enrolled in a dog training school - so they can get trained before bad habits start, so owner sets them for success in life and an enjoyable lifelong partnership, when people go away on holidays they'll need someone to look after them or a place to be boarded at. Kids may like the idea of having pets but they need to learn to help looking after them as well, pets are not toys that can be put on a shelf at the end of the day, they have ongoing needs. Many people end up dumping Xmas pets at the local animal shelters when the novelty wears off or when reality kicks in - dogs start growing up and if not put early in some form of training few things are likely to start going wrong, or person realizes that she doesn't have time for them, that their life is too busy as it is, costs add. So please choose to have a pet when the time is right for you and your family. You'll get to enjoy it a lot more.  But if you do decide to get a dog this Xmas, put it through dog school as soon as possible. Give it the best chance in life to really be your best friend, a pet you look forward coming back to at the end of each working day. And treat it with the dignity it deserves.