puppy party

jackrussel

hey all.

our vet rang us this evening to let us know that they're having a puppy party on tuesday evening. its an animal care hospital and the vets are very good even though their advice differs from vet to vet at times. just wondering if anyone has been to one of these things before and can enlighten us as to what goes on at them. we've to let them know tomorrow evening if we are going to attend

DBB

I'm assuming you have a puppy so?!
What age is he/she?

jackrussel

DBB wrote: »

I'm assuming you have a puppy so?!
What age is he/she?

ya, hes a 6 month old long coat chihuahua thats just started to lose his baby teeth in the last week

DBB

Lovely!
Puppy parties have become very popular in vet clinics, but unless the people who run them (often vet nurses) have specialised training in how to run them, they can do more harm than good.
Your puppy, for example, is too old to attend puppy parties, because developmentally he's now a young adult, not a puppy, and as such his presence amongst young puppies is not necessarily appropriate, unless he has been specifically invited along because he's known to be gentle and well behaved around real baby dogs. He has his adult teeth now, and that also puts him into a different category in terms of what could go wrong if he plays too rough. They may be making an exception for a breed as small as a Chihuahua, but I think small breeds in his young adult age group (excluding terriers) should be attending groups or classes with other young adults of similar size, or larger dogs known to be excellent with smallies.
Unless they have a specific reason to do so, people running puppy parties should not be inviting 6 month old dogs along.

jackrussel

that would be a no go then, thanks for your response DBB

ferretone

Yeah, they can be really great: the rescue I got my pup from has them every 2 weeks. I brought mine to the first one after I got her. She was 16 weeks at that stage, and there was only 1 other pup as old as her there, and mine was much bigger than any of the others. As it happened, my girl was actually a good asset at that one, as her confidence around other dogs helped a lot with coaxing all the others out, and she was not at all rough with them.

However, while they generally encourage puppy adopters to come to several of these, I decided myself she would be too old for the next one. She didn't need it herself, and would be too big and also moved on to a different developmental stage to the other pups by then. I don't know what the clinic was thinking by inviting your fella.

Unless they have more than one room, and would be inviting 1 or 2 other small dogs of his age, who may need a little supervised help with a bit of late-ish socialisation? In the rescue mine came from, if an older pup comes along, they will bring out another of similar age and size for him to play with, in a different area. I know someone else who adopted from there, with whom this was done. Perhaps it might be worth calling the clinic, just in case they had something like this in mind?

tk123

I went to puppy parties with Bailey and he was too shy to play - i know now that I could have gotten help then in the very early days and it may have shaped him into a different/more confident dog....At the time I didn't know that It was kind of a running joke in the class (run by a vet nurse) and I was led to believe he'd grow out of it. I took a few years to build his confidence and we still struggle at times.
For that reason with Lucy I started her at 'puppy school' classes at 9 weeks old in a proper training center with structured classes with space for all of the puppies -our vets waiting room is smallish so everyone was on top of each other. I'll admit I kind of hated it because I already knew how to train all of the command at that stage lol but it was brilliant for her to be around other puppies, being handled by other owners, exposed to all their props (doll in buggy, vacuum cleaner, umbrellas etc etc) and then having play time and the end which was organised into different ages/sizes and confidence levels.