Puppy School's Amazing 9th Conference 2024!
Operations Manager, Sarah Smith, tells us about our recent Puppy School Conference and how it benefits the UK’s leading network of positive puppy trainers and guests.
Every two years, Puppy School tutors from across the UK travel to the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire for a packed weekend of CPD fun. For most, it is the highlight of the year. An opportunity to gather together, say hello in person and learn from some of the best experts in their field. And this year was no exception!
With a superb guest speaker line up who gave workshops and lectures on Lost Dog Tracking, Training Anti-poaching Dogs, Mantrailing, Trick Training, ACE Freework, Power of Personal Branding Photography and Taking Care of Yourself, Team Games in the Woods, as well as an All About Dogs Quiz as part of the evening entertainment, the Puppy School Conference 2024 certainly proved to be a huge success.
We are proud to have been able to offer our tutors and guests opportunitites to enhance their own learning and develop their career professional development. Whether that is experiencing an introduction to something new, building upon existing skills or developing techniques that can be used within their own practice, it is what helps to make us better. By making sure we offer up-to-date, proven reward-based theories, techniques and practises, we are pleased to host superb CPD opportunities for both ends of the lead!
Labradoodle 'telling a secret' : Trick Training
Corgi finding the trail layer : Mantrailing
Golden Retriever puppy says hi! : Welcome Address
With over 80 people and 63 dogs attending, the conference was certainly busy and everything went smoothly. This year we opened up our conference to guests from outside the Puppy School family and welcomed them to share the expertise and make new contacts. It is important to forge connections and work with like minded professionals so this will now be considered for future conferences.
Finding the perfect balance of interactive workshops where attendees can work with their own dogs if they choose, seminars and presentations to listen and learn from as well as fun games and quizzes, is always at the forefront of our minds when arranging the conference. We are already thinking ahead to 2026 and how we can make it even better! Not an easy task with feedback like “Fantastic, loved it. Loved the variety between dog training content and business support content”,“Really enjoyable, educational, and fun” and “had the best weekend and didn't want it to end!”
Natures Menu Melanie Sainsbury working with her dogs : Games in the Woods
We must give a special mention to Natures Menu (https://www.naturesmenu.co.uk), as all of this wouldn’t be possible without their sponsorship. It is their continued support that means we can deliver a fantastic conference at cost price every two years and we are very grateful for it. We would also like to thank Tug-e-nuff for their continued support and for donating thank you gifts.
Finally we would like to thank all of our guest speakers, Claire Brown of K9 North, Sandra Raw of Worcester Dogs, Jason Cortis of Worcester Dogs & Mantrailing UK, Louise Otter of Surrey and South London Dog Training & Behaviour, Melanie Sainsbury of Natures Menu, Becky Howe of Puppy School Tiverton Dog Training, Vicki Watts of The Doghouse Fit Train Fun, Anastasia Jobson and Chrissie Pargeter of Puppy School Sussex. Thank you for making this year’s conference one of the best yet.
Papillon experiencing ACE Freework
9th Puppy School conference
82 tutors and guests
63 dogs in total
Tutors and guests learning together : Lost Dog Tracking
Strike a pose! Tutor with their dog : Brand Photography
Celebrating long service awards : 65 years combined!
Collie dog taking Scent from an article : Mantrailing
Spot Prize Winners
Tutor enjoying working with Vizsla
Tutor presenting self care
More brand photography!
Taking it all in! : Mantrailing
Testimonials
What Clients say
about Puppy School
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“It was just a great course, it helped so much with our confidence in training Lucky correctly, and watching his confidence grow from being super nervous when he started, to the outgoing bundle he is now. Puppy School has been amazing!”— Erica
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“Caroline is an excellent trainer. She is knowledgeable, friendly and very patient, never judgemental. Teg and I enjoyed the classes very much.”— Andrew
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“Claire, is so knowledgeable, patient and very helpful. Amber and I thoroughly enjoyed the six week course. It has certainly helped Amber to understand simple commands. Even though I have owned dogs before, Claire has taught me a lot too. A big thank you Claire. ”— Thomas
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“We attended puppy school with our American bully puppy coco, we had already had a terrible experience with another school who made us feel tidally uncomfortable and unwelcome with our puppy. Puppy school Hollywood could not have been more different, Sarah was a fantastic tutor and a real supporter of Coco, encouraging us when the muzzle made exercises that bit more tricky and thinking up modifications so Coco was never left out. We were introduced to the class and the explanation of why Coco was wearing a muzzle was done in a way that we didn’t feel in any way uncomfortable and the other puppy parents were reassured. Thank you so much for giving our very restricted puppy the opportunity to be ‘normal’, I can’t articulate what an impact it had.”— Frances
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“The whole family really enjoyed the puppy course. Elin was a brilliant instructor, extremely knowledgeable, helpful, welcoming and easy to understand. We have learnt a lot and thoroughly enjoyed the course. Thank you!”— Sam