What are they?
Puppy 1:1 clinics are new to Greenbay Vets and replacing our old Puppy Parties. Our new clinics are designed to allow puppies and their owners an opportunity to meet one on one with one of our nurses to discuss all things training, socialisation, and desensitisation. They are held for 4 weeks and each week we discuss a new topic. We do not charge for these clinics, but they are only open to puppies registered with us.
What do we do?
A one-to-one approach allows our puppies to become accustomed to a veterinary setting in a controlled manner. We use positive reinforcement with desensitizing them to the vet environment. We do this by scattering tasty treats around the consulting room and allowing them to roam and sniff them out. Our aim is to desensitise our patients to the practice and consulting room. In most cases, pets are only brought to the practice when there is something wrong which means a lot of time they can have fear/anxiety about the environment.
Why do we do this?
Having puppies in for their 1:1 clinics helps prevent a high fear response. We can never truly eradicate fear completely, but we can play a big role in improving this response. The scattering of treats, as well as providing a LickiMat with high-value treats helps create a positive feeling with the consult room and table.
What is discussed?
As previously mentioned, we discuss a different topic each week. These topics are toilet training, socialisation, and recall training, dental care, and pet insurance. However, there may also be other topics you wish to discuss, and welcome all open communication and will always try and help where we can.
Will my puppy get to meet other puppies?
We still hope to be able to have puppies meet each other during the crossover of appointments. We have a dedicated puppy clinic slot on Wednesdays from 5:30 pm-6:30 pm. We would love to have puppies say a quick hello as one leaves and another enters. This allows them to meet and greet in a polite manner without too many other puppies around which could cause fear and a heightened state of excitement which in the long run could damage their ability to greet other dogs appropriately.
What happens next?
After the 4 weeks are up, we still welcome you to pop in whenever you are passing to receive a treat and to have a weight check. This is again teaching your pup that not every visit to the practice is going to be scary or painful. We also welcome continued communication.
If you have any further queries on training or behaviour, we advise you to send us an email and we will help in any way we can. We have a dedicated email for anything puppy training/behaviour and this will go directly to our nurse Laura H who deals mostly with puppies. This email is: laura.h@greenbayvets.co.uk.