Earlysville Animal Hospital

The backyard at the Earlysville Animal Hospital is home to Golden Rule Dog Training

The secret to a well mannered and enjoyable family pet is positive training

Dogs learn from praise and reward!

This training group offers classes teaches primarily agility classes.  All classes offered focus on positive training. There are no punishments for unwanted behavior, only reward for good behavior. We use Clickers as a way to help the dog know when they offer the behavior we want. 

The doctors and staff of the Earlysville Animal Hospital firmly believe that proper training is very important for the care of your pet. Taking classes with your dog is an excellent way to get started.

All puppies should have a socialization class where reward and praise are the focus. We recommend Canine Campus dog school in Charlottesville.

If your dog needs private classes, we recommend Good Dog Training.

We recommend enrolling all puppies in puppy socialization class when they are 7 - 10 weeks old.

Behavior experts agree that this is ideal. 

 The behavior specialists at the University of Purdue tells us:

"The main objectives of puppy classes are exposure and desensitization to potentially frightening stimuli, socialization, and the teaching of appropriate dog-owner interaction. Although simple commands are trained as well, obedience training is not a main objective of puppy classes. 

However, the socialization period of dogs ends at around 12-14 weeks of age. 

Up to that age, puppies can readily learn not to fear new things, and to develop appropriate social behavior. If this opportunity to shape puppy behavior is missed, the puppies are likely to show behavior disturbances later in life. Therefore, in order to maximize the benefits of puppy classes, puppies should be enrolled at 7-10 weeks of age if possible, the sooner the better.

Puppies go through well-defined developmental stages. Puppy classes are designed to utilize the sociability of young puppies. 

Let's welcome new puppies into our society by showing them what we expect, not dispose of them because we failed to communicate our expectations at a time when the puppies are most impressionable."

Ideally, classes start at least 10 days after initial vaccination for the Distemper/Parvo combination and Bordatella.

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