When should puppies go to puppy school?

The short answer is that puppies should go to puppy school as soon as possible! However, taking into account your puppy’s health status is crucial. Since the socialisation period starts around 4 weeks of age, by the time you adopt your puppy at 8 weeks of age, they are ready to start attending puppy school as long as they have had at least one vaccination. There are different vaccination protocols and some puppies will have had their first vaccination at 6 weeks of age, others at 7, 8 or 9 weeks of age. These are usually followed by 2 or 3 boosters at 3-4 week intervals.

Since vaccinations act to prime the immune system, you need to wait at least 7 days after the vaccination before it starts to have a protective effect and your puppy can start mingling with other vaccinated puppies.

If your puppy has had a different vaccination schedule, please discuss this with your veterinarian.

After 16 weeks (4 months) of age, puppy school no longer has the same benefit for the puppy. Large and giant breed puppies may also be getting very big and this may be problematic for the puppy school unless they have separate classes for small and large puppies. Although it will still be beneficial for you and your puppy to attend classes, these are not the same as puppy school and neither one is a substitute for the other.

So don’t delay, book your puppy in to a Hill’s puppy school today!