Helena54 Thank you for your reply. Yours views are very valuable, as are averyones.

I have found this thread very helpful. Thank you all. Denise x

Struggling to get it to quote properly so have replied to your blue replies with my red replies. Hoep it makes sense

c) Owners can learn just what is and what isn't "dog aggression" when they see an adult dog reprimand a pup for unruly or unacceptable berhavcour. So many people are scared of snarling, growling, snapping, chasing, simply because they assume it to be terrible "aggression" and think it will end in the tearing apart of the puppy! Instead it ends with the puppy calming down and ceasing poor behaviour nand the adult dog losing interest and going about its bussiness.

Afraid I don't agree wholeheartedly with this. There is a very fine line between the growling, snapping etc. of play (I know coz I have the worst and noisiest breed for this!)and real aggression, and I think it take s a a really experienced owner to tell the difference quite honestly. Many a time, my dogs have been on the floor playing exhuberantly, even when the puppy was quite small, and friends who were here at the time were quite horrified and said they were "fighting" even though some of them had dogs themselves, whereas I knew different. It's not unheard of for a puppy to be seriously damaged by an over-enthusiastic schoolmaster I don't think. Only a puppy's mother knows how far it can push things, not any other dog imo! That's just my opinion of course, I've heard of cases.

Thats why we do our best to try to teach owners. I agree that it isn't always easy to tell the difference. But I would sooner new dog owners have had a at least SOME training before they set out on their great dog owning adventure. Else as is often the case a perfectly innocent grumble from their adolescant or adult dog at another which is being rude or over exuberant, often results in an owner considering their dog has "turned aggressive" and putting it on a lead forever.THich in itself often causes greter problems. Thats why we teach what we can when we can.

d) It gives the chance of puppy owners to see other older puppies "go adolescant" and prepares them for the types of behaviour their puppy might elude to when it too goes adolescant.

e) and VERY significantly, it allows a brilliant teaching opportunity for puppies to learn that "No other human" will be affectionate toward them or feed or play with them, if the puppy approaches them. Only their owner will. (we do not allow petting or stroking or feeding of other peoples puppies during romps). Interestingly in a couple of weeks, most puppies lose interest in the other humans in the romp session and only return to their owners for play or other reward. This is a great life lesson and one that can not easily be managed on the park with so many strangers falling in love with puppies and fussing them for jumping up, or making silly smiley faces at them as they advance toward them.

Why would you want to do that?? Are you not showing the puppy that it's only "safe" to go to somebody they know??? That's a very strange idea to me. I think the puppy will know all that anyway, purely by spending so much time with it's owner, there's no need to restrict it from having other human contact, especially in that environment, I would have thought it the perfect place to get to know strange people.

Have to disagree. In my experince many puppies are encouraged by strangers to jump up them because they are so cute. This teaches the pup that jumping up is allowed, that strangers are friendly and this will not likely be the case when the dog is fully grown and covered in fox poo! What we teach in social classes is that though other owners are nothing to be scared of, they are not anything to get particularly excited about, or run up to, or jump up either. In my view this is a crucial lesson, especially for overly friendly, or overly large types. Do you really want any adult dog running up to any stranger, for any reason? Apart from anything else under the DDA, it could be considered "out of control". With tighter legislation and the anti dog broigade growing I think it is imperative that dogs stick with their owners. And personally I feel that doing what we do in Soialisation groups is key to success in this area. Thats just my view



f),it provides a meeting place for owners with similar aged animals to meet and make friends and discuss puppy challenges.

G) It provides owners with an understanding of just how hard they have to work to compete with other distractions (such as other puppies they where just playing with) and get their puppies attention in play or dog.owner chase and tug games.

That's just my view.

From having observed our Jake, I'm firmly of the beliefe that dogs interact with other dogs in a totally different way compared to their interaction with humans. It therefore stands to reason that a human will have a hard if not impossible time teaching their dog how to interact with other dogs. The best teaching aid in the latter relationship is loosely supervised socialisation.

I noticed mention in other posts of 'aggressive' behaviour. We had an experience of that recently. To cut a long story short, Jake had a snarling/snapping session with a GSD. I think the GSD owner was expecting us to be horrified. However, it was clearly two adult male dogs having a push around with no intention of hurting each other. Witness the fact that both dogs broke it off after being told to pack it in by their respective owners.

Ahhhh, now I get it!!! Yes, totally agree, and I'd never thought of using that idea to stop these over friendly dogs coming over and plastering their muddy paws all over my clean jacket, so I think you've got that one spot on! As you know, my dogs don't do "other humans" anyway coz they're always stuck to me like glue, so I don't have the problem, in fact, I could have had the opposite problem, and that's probably why I was against your idea in the first place, my main concern being TO socialise my dogs with humans!

I take you point about first-time owners.

However, as an experienced owner, I wouldn't have need of the first four, and last one, of your points; and I meet more than enough owners when out locally with my dog not to need a seperate 'meeting' place . . . but point (e) I can see might be relevant.

All puppies are adorable, but Polish Lowland Sheepdog puppies are so rare and super-cute, people are naturally attracted to them - I had the devil's own time trying to teach Esau not to jump up at strangers! People would encourage him to do this, and say "It's OK, I don't mind" when I apologized for him jumping up - but it wasn't OK, and I minded!

Whether or not the type of class you describe would have taught Esau that other people weren't worth bothering with, however, I'm not so sure of . . . I think I would still have encountered people who did this anyway, and he'd just have learned it was worth trying people out - maybe not worth it at puppy class, but in the park/the woods, hey, go for it!! (And yes, he's more than intelligent enough to work that out, LOL!). In other words, I had to learn to deal with this situation when it occurred - people just will not ignore a sweet, fluffy, cuddly puppy running up to them for a cuddle, just because you ask them to, much as it would make life easier if they did!

I agree that puppy-training classes, with a carefully supervised 'play session' scheduled in, are worth going to - they teach a dog he must pay attention to his owner even with distractions. It's just the "let them all of the lead and do whatever the heck they feel like, while the owners drink tea and talk about last night's Eastenders" type sessions that I can't see the point of.

Massively difficult to train other people not to fuss a cute pup such as yours I'm sure!

Im agree that out f control "go for it" sessions teach litle other than wild behaviour. But sessions managed by trainers and adult supervising dogs, with owners under strict instructions on how to behave toward other peoples dogs are, it seems at least, proving very usefull training opportunities.

Yep for sure dogs that are not overly happy about strangers could do with different management to what standard practise in our puppy romps offer. However, nervous puppes still attend romps and when they are noted as nervous they are dealt with individually.

All training classes or experience can be good or bad, depending on the organisation, approach and a bit of luck. If as far as possible, dogs experinces are MANAGED to suit their young and growing, developmental needs, that they are responsive to their owners despite deestractions, avoid jumping on strangers and are happy with lots of folks and dogs about, and respectful of adult dogs, in my view are very worthwhile.

Again thanks everyone for their inpout.

It seems the general concensus is that socialisation is crucial, but management is also crucial, and the approach of the friends views who prompted this thread, is unusual to say the least. Thank you all.