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Behaviour, training & support for cockapoos, doodles, labradors, spaniels & vizslas in modern pet homes.
Helping owners better understand their dogs across Reading, Berkshire & South Oxfordshire.
Throw a puppy into a free-for-all and one of three things happens.
One - your puppy is fine. You got lucky. It’s the least likely outcome.
Two - your puppy rehearses behaviour you’ll spend months undoing. Rushing up to every dog. Jumping all over them. Learning that other dogs are the most exciting thing in the world - and you’re not.
Three - your puppy gets scared. Hiding under a chair. Trembling behind your legs. Learning that other puppies are bad news. This is how fear of other dogs can start - in a session that was supposed to prevent it.
Socialisation is not puppies playing with puppies. That’s the biggest misconception I hear, and it’s where a lot of problems start.
Real socialisation is teaching your puppy to live in a human world. New sights, sounds, smells, textures. Another dog they can see, and still choose you instead.
That’s Elphaba in the video. The recall is trained - but she can only hear me at all because the world doesn’t overwhelm her.
Exposure does not equal interaction.
Send this to someone who’s just brought a puppy home.
21/07/2026
“My puppy hides behind me every time another dog comes near. Will he grow out of it?”
I get asked this a lot, and I understand why. At home they’re happy, bouncy, full of themselves. Then you take them out for a walk, another dog appears up ahead, and suddenly they’re a different puppy altogether. Tucked behind your legs. Or barking at the dog across the road. Some plant themselves and refuse to move. Some freeze completely. Some roll onto their back looking for all the world like they’re being friendly, except every muscle is tense.
And the advice you’ll usually hear is that they’re just shy, they need to socialise more, they’ll get over it, they’ll grow out of it.
Here’s the honest version, and it’s not meant to worry you or make you feel you’ve done something wrong: most of the time, fear doesn’t fade on its own. It builds.
This is the bit that surprises people. Every time a puppy meets something that frightens them, at a level they can’t cope with, the fear doesn’t wear off. It gets a little worse each time. It’s the opposite of how you actually help a worried puppy, which is to keep things gentle enough that they never tip into panic, and grow their confidence from there. It’s also why “chuck them in at the deep end and they’ll sort it out” is some of the most damaging advice going. A good puppy class is the opposite of that deep end - a calm, controlled place where a worried puppy only ever meets as much as they can handle at a time.
Now, not every wobble is fear. Sometimes a cockapoo squeaking and pulling towards another dog is just desperate to say hello. The difference is in the body. A frightened puppy makes themselves small, hangs back, wants to move away. An excited one leans in, moves forward, loose and waggy. And it really matters which you’ve got, because that frustrated “let me at them” spaniel, held back on the lead week after week, is very often the reactive adolescent I meet a year later.
This is where puppy classes can really help. Not for the sit and the recall, though that comes too. A good puppy class is one of the only places you can watch your puppy around other dogs and people while someone who knows exactly what they’re looking at is standing right there with you. They can talk it through as it happens, and tell you honestly whether what you’re seeing is normal or something worth working on. And if it does need work, you’re already in the right hands. Sometimes that’s a small change within the class. Sometimes it’s a few gentle socialisation sessions to build confidence. Sometimes it’s a one-to-one. Either way, you’re not left guessing, and you’ve caught it early, while it’s still easy to help.
I’ll leave you with one puppy I worked with. At his very first session he didn’t bark, he screamed, and threw himself at the wall trying to get away from me. Genuinely petrified of people and other dogs. We started him behind a playpen, just watching, nothing asked of him. Then peering over it. Then a couple of puppy friends he decided were safe. He finished as an unstoppable little socialite. He would not be the dog he is today if he’d been left to grow out of it.
If any of that sounds like your puppy, that’s exactly who our puppy classes are for.
Know someone with a puppy? Tag them in a comment!
Link to book in comments.
This is what a puppy class actually looks like.
Most people booking their first one have no idea what they’re walking into. So here’s ninety seconds of it.
Ball pits, tunnels, things that wobble underfoot. Puppies meeting new surfaces and new sounds and working out, with a bit of help, that new isn’t the same as frightening. Time off lead with other puppies, indoors, where it’s safe to get it wrong.
And if there’s one thing to take away from it - a puppy who looks at you is a puppy who doesn’t pull on the lead. A puppy who looks at you is a puppy who comes back when you call.
Classes run at Mapledurham, just outside Caversham, and Sulhamstead, just outside Burghfield.
Link in the comments if you’re local and want to know more.
Harnesses teach dogs to pull.
That's one of the most common things I hear from owners who've been told to ditch the harness and use a collar instead.
This is Elphaba. Four months old. In a harness. On lead. Off lead. Walking beautifully.
The harness didn't teach her this. I did.
Equipment doesn't train dogs. People do.
Know someone who's been told to ditch the harness? Send them this.
4 months old. Watch what she does with a crisp wrapper.
Elphaba is a Stabyhoun - a rare Dutch gun dog breed. But her brain works exactly like your Cockapoo, your Labradoodle, your Spaniel, your Lab.
Bred to hunt and retrieve alongside a human. That working partnership is in their DNA.
I haven't taught her to sit. Or stay. Or give a paw.
What I have done is make her name the best sound in the world. Every single time I've said it, something good has happened. So when she picked up that crisp wrapper, I called her name once.
She dropped it and came back to me.
A behaviour that gets rewarded gets repeated. The more your puppy learns that their name predicts good things, the less you ever need to worry about what's in their mouth.
This is what we build from day one in our puppy classes in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. Not tricks. A dog that actually wants to be with you.
Follow us for more on raising gun dogs and their crosses to actually fit real life.
If you're local - link to puppy classes in the comments.
This is usually when the biting starts.
Earlier on this walk, Elphaba met bin men for the first time. At the time, she actually seemed to cope really well.
But puppies don’t always show overwhelm in the moment. Sometimes it shows up later as jumping up, panting, zooming around, grabbing sleeves or suddenly struggling to focus.
A lot of puppy “bad behaviour” starts with a puppy whose nervous system has simply had enough.
This is why puppy socialisation is about so much more than just puppy play.
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Opening Hours
| Tuesday | 10am - 6pm |
| Wednesday | 10am - 7:30pm |
| Thursday | 10am - 6pm |
| Friday | 10am - 7:30pm |
| Saturday | 9am - 2pm |
| Sunday | 9am - 2:30pm |