Farfl Graduates From Puppy Kindergarten

She made it all the way through her eight weeks of basic training!

I'd heard pretty mixed reviews of training classes at Petsmart, but as soon as I met Heather I knew I was in the right place.

I'd only gone into Petsmart to buy some cat claw clippers to trim Farfl's tiny nails when a very helpful lady who introduced herself to me as Heather offered to show me where they were. I told her I was buying them for my chihuahua puppy and Heather told me she was a trainer and had found her chihuahua the easiest dog to train out of every dog she'd ever owned!

We ended up having a long conversation about chihuahuas and Heather gave me some great advice from her personal experience that I hadn't seen anywhere else in books that I'd read. I was impressed, and when she told me she'd been a professional trainer for 25 years, was now working at Petsmart and had a puppy kindergarten class starting, I signed up right away!

Heather kept the class to a fairly small size and there was a mix of breeds - a standard poodle, a shih tzu, a cockerdoodle, a cairn terrier, a retriever and another poodle mix. Farfl was (obviously) the smallest puppy in the class and Heather was very careful to make sure that none of the other dogs were allowed to jump on her or knock her down.

The eight weeks flew by and now Farfl can sit, lie down, come when called, leave things she shouldn't have in her mouth, stay (for a few seconds - we're working on this), fetch and twirl around in a circle. She passed her final lesson with flying colours!

I was really pleased with her progress, Heather's teaching, the socialization aspect of the class, and the great offers and coupons I got through Petsmart from taking the class. I'll definitely be signing Farfl up for Heather's intermediate class which starts at the end of April!

Related posts:

1. Chihuahua advanced training graduation
2. Farfl starts an all-chihuahua advanced training group
3. Leash Training Breakthrough!
4. Transitioning from pee-pads to going outside
5. “The Puppy Whisperer” Book Review