ZEN PUPPY KINDERGARTEN

Finding safe and appropriate ways to socialize a puppy in the critical window between 8 to 16 weeks of age can be a challenge, and causes a lot of anxiety in puppy owners trying to do the right thing before the core vaccination protocol is completed. This socialization period is the most important stage of development for all dogs and doing it well will contribute greatly towards creating a confident, resilient and happy adult dog. Falling short on effective puppy socialization greatly increases the risk of fear-based behaviours in the adult dog.

The Zen Dog Approach

Our well-rounded Zen Puppy Kindergarten course provides a low risk environment to expose your puppy to novel stimuli and baby dog learning with opportunities to build confidence and education in a safe and structured environment. The human end of the puppy’s leash will also come away with an incredible amount of puppy-related knowledge to guide their dog through the important months ahead. 

Unlike other Kindgarten courses available, we do not believe in a drop-in format as we want to present a consistent and well thought out cirriculum for our students so there is a progression of learning and a cohesive class environment.  Our Zen Puppy Kindergarten graduates come away from this course with an incredible bank of knowledge that will support them going forward!

The course features six one-hour lessons, and covers the basics of early puppy socialization, handling, skills building, body awareness, nutrition and wellness. We discuss toy play, enrichment, grooming, impulse control and early obedience exercises, all designed to start puppies off in the best way possible in a positive and supportive environment. In the first lesson we meet over zoom with foundation exercises to support the in-person lessons, and a discussion on puppy biting, crate and potty training, as well as management strategies to prevent unwanted behaviours from flourishing. 

The five remaining lessons are held at Simply Natural Raw Pet Foods in Kerrisdale with an interactive mix of skills building, puppy agility/body awareness, social play, and fun contests to win prizes! We  set up a mini agility/obstacle course for the last class – one of the highlights, celebrating six weeks of hard work!

The course includes a puppy pack of training goodies and supplies to assist puppy-human teams on their learning journey. Class size is kept to six puppies between 9 and 14 weeks of age at the start date of the class. All puppies must have age-appropriate vaccines to join.

We promise this to be one of the most well-rounded and informative puppy classes in Vancouver; it might be our most popular course and fills fast! 

Please note, there is no class May 28th.