Our Puppy School Tutors
Puppy School tutors are carefully selected to ensure they have experience with animals, good communication skills, empathy, compassion and respect for others. Tutors attend regular courses in animal behaviour and training techniques, and keep up to date with information that may be useful to new puppy parents.
All tutors have acquired a great deal of practical hands-on experience with different breeds and types of dog before joining Puppy School, as well as owning dogs themselves.
Comprehensive Training for Tutors
Our Puppy School tutors and associate tutors must undergo extensive training before teaching Puppy School classes. This includes an application and interview process, six days of comprehensive theory tuition covering a range of topics from animal learning to lesson plans (taught predominently by founder and director, Gwen Bailey and Puppy School tutor of 15 years, Catherine Tomlinson, both of whom are APBC registered and registered with ABTC as clinical animal behaviourists, together with a range of other specialists within Puppy School), further coaching, mentoring and private study, 3 days of supervised practical work and a comprehensive correspondence course.
Regular monitoring of classes and the latest science-based techniques
All Puppy School classes are inspected by experienced Regional Managers on a 6 monthly basis. This offers support and refinement and ensures our high standards are maintained.
Courses in behaviour problem solving, run by Association of Pet Behaviour practitioners, are attended twice a year to ensure the best advice is offered to owners with problem puppies.
Tutors are kept up to date with new ideas by regularly attending continuing professional development meetings including Puppy School conferences and exclusive Puppy School courses by leading trainers/behaviourists. In addition, tutors regularly attend seminars and conferences run by groups such as APBC, and BSAVA.
In addition, tutors have instant access to over 100 tutors' knowledge and advice via our dedicated online forum so clients can be assured that they get the combined knowlege of a huge group of experts.
The quality of the Puppy School tutors is incredible and can be seen by looking through the profiles of individual tutors. Many have certification in animal behaviour from accredited academic institutions.All have years of experience of working with dogs and puppies.
In addition, a number are full members of the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors and, hence, registered as Clinical Animal Behaviourists (acknowledged by the Animal Behaviour and Training Council (ABTC)).
The majority of our tutors and associate tutors are recognised as Animal Training Instructors with the ABTC, and others are working towards the qualification.
Many are accredited by the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, a benchmark of excellence in positive reward-based dog training.
Many of our tutors have thriving careers as behaviourists, as veterinary nurses, or in rescue shelters. Others work as accountants or teachers, or raise families but run puppy classes and have other dog-related interests in their free time. Quite a few of our tutors work as dog sitters, dog walkers or dog groomers. Some are volunteers involved in dog walking, home visiting or fostering. Some do puppy walking or work for the assistance dog charities. All own their own dogs, from Affenpinschers and Pugs to Labradoodles and Wirehaired Vizslas, and many are interested in scent work, obedience, agility, gun dog work, scent work, Canicross and Hoopers.
All tutors have a common passion for puppies and a keen interest in animal welfare and behaviour. Everyone contributes regularly to the exclusive Puppy School forum where ideas and problems are discussed and solutions offered. This allows for our massive collective knowledge to be tapped into whenever necessary to help puppies and their owners.
Testimonials
What Clients say
about Puppy School
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“Caroline was lovely, clearly knowledgeable, very approachable and patient.”— Sarah
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“Very informative, very friendly environment. Cat put me and Betty as ease right away and she was extremely approachable if I had any concerns or queries. ”— Ross
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“I can highly recommend Puppy school. I have owned dogs for over forty years but I still learnt lots of invaluable information to help with life with my new puppy. Puppy School was fun as well as informative. Betty and I both enjoyed them so much, thank you Puppy School and Frankie. ”— Debby
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“Puppy School has been an all round excellent package from start to finish but the greatest asset to this training was Sally! Sally was calm, clear and responsive to us all so you feel you get the benefit from being in a group of handlers and puppies with all the benefits of that but also individual attention to support you and your puppies specific needs/issues. Banjo is a nervous puppy, Sally was very sensitive to this and managed situations so Banjo benefitted from all the training exercises and interaction in a very positive way. She also gave me lots of support in how to help him outside of class. It was also brilliant to have a booklet and online access at home to watch reminder supporting material videos of the things taught in each session. There were also a range of vouchers and free trial bags of different foods which has proven helpful in determining what works for Banjo. I have had several puppies over the years, and have been to several classes, this has been the best experience yet for both me and my puppy. Thanks especially to Sally! ”— Maria
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“Lilly was very friendly and engaging throughout the course. She was also always happy to answer any questions we had at the end of the classes. Our Bonbon absolutely loved Lilly! ”— Molly