Walking into a store filled with tons of ridiculous items, and necessities for dogs, cats, fish, and reptiles just about any kind of animal, tends to make your head spin. However I walked into this random madness during puppy socialization, a time were puppies can romp around and chew on each other and people can watch from the sidelines with cameras and well frankly like me a notebook and a pen to write it all down.
There were 6 dogs in total, most of them golden’s little fluffy golden’s, and little pugs, party poodles, and cockers. All of which it didn’t seem to matter because they were all puppies looking for some fun and Petco is where they found it.
I talked to the manger about why they host this event and she gave me several reasons one it seems was to boost sales seeing adorable little puppies may make you want to buy something for your pet. Second dog parks are unsafe and not controlled so Petco offers a safe environment to bring your puppy to play. Third it helps those people to sign up for puppy classes after seeing the free course.
Overall this puppy socialization looked like a fun experience that was exactly as the manger had said it was a controlled environment because every time a puppy peed on the floor the dogs were called back and the mess was cleaned up. It was also a small fenced on area where they were playing so they didn’t escape.
Also although the class was free when I stopped a woman who had gone outside to let her golden go potty, if I could ask her questions she said yes but was fidgety to get back because class was still going. So I asked her about this class and why she was so eager to get back she responded by saying that her dog used to pee all over the couch before she got home for work, and chew up her shoes, whoever now because of the socialization class her dog has shown improvement and less bad behavior. I was curious as to how just socialization can help and dog and the trainer at Petco explained that all puppies have pent up energy which usually comes out in bad behavior. He explained to me how walks and playing can help but what puppies really need is to socialize.
This is a highly recommended course for all puppies, but even if you don’t have a puppy coming to this class just to see them romp around is equally as beneficial. There was a woman there who asked not to be named, but she had a son that had trouble with dogs and the new couple had wanted one for a while so they brought the autistic child to the puppy classes so he could get used to the dogs, and a month after the classes they bought a Terrier that is a happy part of their family, that they bring to the classes now.
Lilly is the dog’s name and the boy enjoys playing with Lilly with no problems now because of the class. I asked him how he feels about dogs now and he just looked and me and kissed Lilly and that was all I needed to know he wasn’t scared anymore.
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