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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“We loved the training sessions ! Boyce loved seeing his puppy friends and the training really helped give us a bit of confidence with lots of support offered. ”— Terry
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“Caroline was lovely, clearly knowledgeable, very approachable and patient.”— Sarah
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“Great experience. I’ve been to dog training classes in the past and the instructors can be very “it’s your fault”, “you’re doing it wrong” to the owners, however, Eleanor was very patient, kind, and explained things in a helpful way rather than making you feel like you were at fault. Loved these classes. Rum loved them too!”— Ryan
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“Great class, enjoyed the group setting, good venue and friendly knowledgeable trainer. Taught puppy and owner loads, really enjoyed and would highly recommend to anyone getting a puppy!”— Richard
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“Charlie was absolutely wonderful in all aspects. Friendly, kind and knowledgeable. Always available to answer any questions or concerns. Charlie is very experienced and myself and my daughter thoroughly enjoyed the classes and wish that we had more weeks together with our puppy family! Highly recommended and really enjoyable! Thank you for helping us understood our puppy and teaching us ways to grow together - invaluable”— Sam