Puppy School Paddington, Eastern Suburbs Sydney

Four weeks at Dogs in Town on Oxford Street, capped at ten puppies and matched by size. Rolling start, so you join the next block rather than waiting for a term to open.

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Puppy school Paddington at a glance

Puppy School Paddington

Booking now open. Places in each block are capped at ten puppies.

Book Paddington puppy school

Venue

Dogs in Town

Address

308 Oxford Street, Paddington NSW 2021

Region

Eastern Suburbs

Days and times

Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and Sunday mornings

Class size

Ten puppies maximum, matched by size

Puppy school at Dogs in Town, Paddington

Suburbs we cover from Paddington

Your one to one sessions happen at your own address, so only the group class brings you to the venue. Tap a suburb to see local parks, off lead rules and tips.

Where else we work

Owners travel to Paddington from Bondi, Bellevue Hill, Double Bay and Rose Bay.

Want your own trainer, one to one at home? See Private Puppy Training. Older dog? See in home dog behaviour training. The whole program is explained on the Complete Puppy Program page.

Getting to Paddington

The venue

Dogs in Town is a purpose built dog facility, not a hired hall. Fully enclosed, cleaned properly, and staffed by people who read dog body language for a living, which matters when the room is full of part vaccinated puppies meeting other dogs for the first time.

Parking

Metered along Oxford Street and free two hour parking in the surrounding streets. Read the plate before you leave the car, Woollahra signs change block to block. Full parking notes go out to every enrolled family before session one.

Public transport

Buses run the length of Oxford Street from the city, Bondi Junction and across the eastern suburbs. Bondi Junction station is a short bus ride away.

The four weeks, week by week

Here is what to expect during puppy school

Week 1, foundations

Controlled introductions one at a time rather than a free for all. Sit, Down and Stay taught properly instead of repeated. Supervised socialisation with a trainer narrating what you are actually watching, which is the part most owners have never had explained. Straight answers on biting, teething and toileting. Your puppy's photo is taken this week for graduation.

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Week 2, adding difficulty

Down and Stay under real distraction. Stay versus Wait explained as two genuinely different commands, because they are. The start of loose lead walking, and a fix for jumping and attention barking. We introduce the first two of the Five Golden Rules here.

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Week 3, building reliability

Chains of commands, recall under distraction, which is the hardest skill and the one that matters most, off lead structured walking, and separation anxiety prevention. Your puppy is bigger and busier by now, so you get breed specific guidance on how much exercise and mental work they actually need.

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Week 4, graduation

Loose lead technique in high distraction conditions, calm freeze, reading park play properly, and a look ahead at early adolescent behaviours before they set as habits. Graduation includes your framed week one photo and a final question and answer.

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Who comes to Paddington

Three kinds of people book Paddington, and you will almost certainly recognise yourself in one of them.

You have never had a dog before. You have read everything, you have a list of questions, and underneath it you are quietly worried about getting it wrong. That is the most common person in the room, and it is a good sign rather than a bad one. Nobody arrives knowing how to do this.

You have had a dog before and it got away from you. They pulled, or barked, or you stopped taking them places, and you have decided this one will be different. You did not fail that dog. You did not have a system, and nobody gave you one. This time you get one in week one.

Your puppy has not arrived yet. Book anyway. The fortnight after a puppy lands decides more than any month that follows it, and the owners who plan ahead are the ones who never end up in the difficult conversation at eight months.

What almost everyone here has in common is a terrace or a flat above the shops, a courtyard rather than a garden, and a street that never goes quiet. Every size is welcome and every class is matched by size.

Some Local Details

Introduce the section here.

Why Paddington is our flagship school

Paddington is the busiest dog suburb in the eastern suburbs and one of the hardest to raise a puppy in, for a reason nobody mentions when they hand you the puppy. Almost nobody here has a garden. A dog in a house with a back door gets hours a day where nothing is expected of them and nobody is watching. A dog in a Paddington terrace gets a courtyard, if that, and none of that quiet time unless somebody builds it in on purpose.

That single gap is behind most of what we are called about locally: the puppy who cannot settle, the barking that starts the moment you shut the door, the dog who is wound up from the second you get home. It is not a temperament issue and it is not something your puppy grows out of. Terraces share walls, so the neighbours hear all of it, which is why owners here usually call sooner than owners anywhere else.

The second thing about Paddington is Oxford Street itself. Your puppy will spend fourteen years walking past cafe tables, delivery bikes, other dogs tied outside shops and a bus every ninety seconds. A puppy who learns to walk past all of that at twelve weeks never develops an opinion about it. A puppy who meets it for the first time at eight months usually does.

When to start

Your puppy needs their second vaccination before the group component, which in practice means starting between eleven and thirteen weeks so the four weeks finish by around sixteen weeks. If your puppy is younger than that, nothing is on hold. The one to one work at your home and the online course both start immediately, and the weeks between eight and eleven are where toileting, biting, crate training and settling are actually decided.

Common Misconceptions from Paddington Owners

There are dogs everywhere here, so they will socialise themselves. Passing forty dogs on Oxford Street is exposure, not socialisation. Structured socialisation is managed introductions with someone telling you what you are looking at, which is most of what week one is for.

We walk them twice a day, so they get enough. A puppy with no garden needs to learn to switch off indoors as much as they need exercise. More walking a puppy who cannot settle usually produces a fitter puppy who cannot settle.

The barking will stop once they grow out of it. In a terrace with shared walls it rarely does on its own, because the neighbours and the street keep rehearsing it. It is very fixable at twelve weeks and much slower at twelve months.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions we get about our puppy program.

What do I bring to the first class?

A flat lead and a normal collar or harness, your vaccination card, poo bags, and something soft your puppy already likes to lie on. Bring treats your puppy actually rates, cut small, and hold back their meal beforehand so they arrive hungry rather than full.

What not to bring: a retractable lead, a head collar, or a squeaky toy. And do not carry your puppy in from the car if you can walk them the last few minutes instead. A puppy who has been carried arrives at a much higher gear than one who has walked.

My puppy is nervous, or has already had a bad experience with another dog. Is class a bad idea?

Tell us before week one and we will plan around it. A worried puppy does not get thrown in, and they do not sit in the corner missing out either. They work at the edge of the group with a trainer, and come in when they are ready rather than when the timetable says so.

Introductions happen one at a time in every class regardless, which is the main reason we do it that way. A free for all is where nervous puppies learn that other dogs are something to get away from.

What age does my puppy need to be to start at Paddington?

The group class needs your puppy to have had their second vaccination, which in practice means starting between eleven and thirteen weeks so the four weeks finish by around sixteen weeks.

If your puppy is younger than that, nothing is on hold. The one to one work at your home and the online course both start immediately, and the weeks between eight and eleven are the ones where toileting, biting, crate training and settling are actually decided. Waiting for class to start is the single most common mistake we see.

Can both of us come? Can the kids?

Both of you should come, and we would rather you did. The single most common reason training fails at home is two people applying it differently, and an hour in the room together fixes more of that than any amount of explaining afterwards.

Kids are welcome and are genuinely useful, because your puppy has to learn to behave around them too. Old enough to follow an instruction is the only real requirement.

How much does it cost?

There are four levels and the current prices are all on the puppy school booking page, along with exactly what each one includes.

The four weeks of class are identical at every level. What you are choosing between is how much one to one time you get in your own home, how long you keep the online course, and how directly you can reach us afterwards. Most families land on the second level, which is where a session at home and the full course access switch on.

What happens after the four weeks?

Graduation is the middle of the job, not the end of it. The four weeks cover the busiest part of the socialisation window, and that window stays open until six months, so the work carries on after the class ends. The next thing coming at you is adolescence, and that is where most owners get caught out.

You keep lifetime access to our community and to Ask Luke, our round the clock question service, with no message cap at any level. From Silver up the online course carries on through the weeks that follow, and at the higher levels you still have sessions in the bank for when something new turns up at seven months.

Can I just do the four weeks of class, without the rest?

Yes. The entry level is the four weeks of class with community support and Public-level Ask Luke. It does not include the online course, and plenty of people start there.

Worth knowing what you are trading off. Class is one hour a week in a room. Everything that actually goes wrong happens at your front door, in your hallway and on your street, and that is what the session at home is for. If budget is the reason, start where you can and step up later rather than not starting.

My puppy is past sixteen weeks. Have we missed it?

You have missed the group class, not the boat. The class has to finish by around sixteen weeks because the puppies in it need to be close in age and size. Your socialisation window stays open until six months, so there is still real work to do.

Private Puppy Training is the same program with the group class swapped for more sessions in your own home. Past thirty two weeks it is Adult Dog Training and Behaviourism. Both are on the site.

Do you come to my home, and how far do you go?

Yes. On Puppy School, home sessions start at Silver. On Private Puppy Training and Adult Dog Training and Behaviourism, every session is at your address. A trainer comes to you and works on your setup, your routine and the behaviour that is actually happening where you live, which is almost never the same as what happens in a training room.

We cover Sydney within roughly a forty five minute drive of the Harbour Bridge. That takes in the eastern suburbs, inner west, lower and upper north shore, northern beaches and south Sydney. Only the group class brings you to a venue.

Can I talk to someone before I commit to anything?

Yes, and we would rather you did. The meet and greet is fifteen minutes, free, and there is nothing to sign at the end of it.

Bring the questions you feel silly asking. Most of what people are worried about at eight weeks is completely normal and takes about ninety seconds to answer, and knowing that before you spend anything is worth more to us than a booking made by someone who is not sure.

How we train

Our standards and ethics.

No pain, no fear, no force

No aggression either, at every location, without exception. We do not use prong collars, e-collars or choke chains, and we will not refer you to anyone who does.
A dog who chooses to listen

What you end up with is a dog who checks in with you without being asked, settles when you sit down, walks past the thing they wanted, and comes back when you call them in a park full of distractions.
Not because they have been bribed into it, and not because they are worried about what happens if they do not. Because you have become the person they want to follow. That is a different dog to live with, and it lasts the whole fourteen years.
Who runs it

Luke Buchanan, Red Cross certified in pet first aid and AFP background checked. Every trainer who works with a client dog holds the same before their first session.

Meet Luke
Every breed, matched by size

Classes are capped at ten and grouped by size, so a Cavoodle is never learning next to a Labrador twice their weight. Your puppy needs their second vaccination before the group component.

Puppy school, puppy preschool and puppy kindergarten in the Eastern Suburbs

Three names, one thing. Puppy school, puppy preschool and puppy kindergarten all describe the same four weeks of structured group work inside the socialisation window, and every provider in the Eastern Suburbs uses whichever term they grew up with. If you have been searching all three and getting different results, that is why.

What actually differs between providers is not the name. It is whether the classes are matched by size, how many puppies are in the room, whether anyone comes to your house, and what happens after week four. Ours are capped at ten and grouped by size, and from Silver upward a trainer works with you at home before the first class.

Where our Eastern Suburbs classes run

The Eastern Suburbs school is at Dogs in Town, 308 Oxford Street, Paddington. Families come from Bondi, Bondi Junction, Woollahra, Double Bay, Bellevue Hill, Rose Bay, Randwick, Bronte, Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, and it is a short run from most of them.

If the weekday evenings do not suit, we also run weekend classes at Edgecliff on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. If you are further north, there is Neutral Bay on the lower north shore. We also run at Zetland, Marrickville and Alexandria. All six take bookings, so check the upcoming dates at whichever one is closest.

One to one puppy training in the Eastern Suburbs

The group class is one hour a week in a room. Almost everything that actually goes wrong happens at your front door, in your hallway, on your street and with your neighbours, which is why the one to one work happens at your address rather than ours.

From Silver upward a trainer comes to your home anywhere in the Eastern Suburbs and works on your setup, your routine, toileting, settling, the crate and the walk you actually take. If you only want that part, it is available on its own for dogs of any age through in home dog behaviour training.

Puppy training in the Eastern Suburbs after sixteen weeks

Group puppy school has to finish by around sixteen weeks, because that is when the socialisation window closes and running it later becomes going through the motions. If your puppy is already past that, you have not missed your chance, you have missed one component of it.

If you would rather train one to one, we run Private Puppy Training, which swaps the group class for more sessions in your own home. Past thirty two weeks it becomes one to one behaviour training. Both cover the same Eastern Suburbs postcodes.

What to search for, and what you will actually get

Puppy school Eastern Suburbs or puppy preschool Eastern Suburbs. Four weeks of group class at Paddington, capped at ten and matched by size.
Puppy kindergarten Eastern Suburbs. The same thing again, usually the term used by vet clinics.
One to one puppy training Eastern Suburbs. A trainer at your address, included from Silver upward.
Puppy training Eastern Suburbs. The whole program, class plus home sessions plus the online course, or Private Puppy Training if your puppy is past puppy school age.

Not sure which one you need? Book a free fifteen minute meet and greet and we will tell you honestly, including if the answer is that you do not need us yet.