Why Puppy Classes Don’t Always Prepare Dogs For Real Life
I don’t like puppy classes.
And one of the BIG reasons why is the clients who come to me having done them feel really deflated that the training isn’t holding up in the real world.
Real world for me is every day life.
It’s the training that happens outside of when we say to our dog “ready – we’re about to do some training together”.
It’s alllll of those sessions you do that get you closer to your end goal of a dog who regardless of their temperament, can exist in our human world without reacting on every single impulse.
Because you’ve done the work.
So why is it you might feel like you've done the work and the training don't be training?
Why is your dog still barking at another dog across the street or completely ignoring everything you say.
Training and emotional states are different things
One of the biggest misunderstandings in dog training is assuming that a trained dog should behave perfectly in every environment. And this is my exact gripe with puppy classes.
We need to be educating our new dog owners that their puppy being able to listen in class won’t automatically translate out in the real world.
Being overwhelmed, over stimulated or afraid are situations in life most if not all of our dogs will experience. And we have to prepare them for that with more challenging training set ups.
Not to mention that…
Walks are full of pressure for some dogs
Humans often see walks as relaxing maybe somewhat boring.
Dogs don’t always feel the same way.
A walk can involve:
Unpredictable dogs
Loud traffic
Fast-moving bikes
Children running
Strangers staring
Tight pavements
Sudden noises
Limited space to move away
Ask yourself, have you prepared your dog for this? Are you in the right headspace to deal with what challenge comes your way?
Only today my male Ruse was rushed by another intact male and in the moment I made the decision to free him, let him interact and then recall him out back to me and play. While the other male stayed glued to his arse until the owner finally did something about it.
I made that decision based on all the information I had to hand:
The other dog and it’s intent
The skills I had in place (recall and play)
The ability I have to get my dogs to listen no matter where we are
We can't just wing these things, we need to prepare as best we can and to do that, we can’t just stay in our puppy training class set ups forever.
Some dogs become reactive because they feel unsafe and are not advocated for. We have left them to fend for themselves and we aren’t someone they can look up to n the house, let alone when faced with a stressful situation.
You’re relying on obedience constantly
A dog can know lots of commands and still feel emotionally insecure.
Holding a sit around another dog isn’t the same as teaching them how to make their own space without going over threshold. Just like walking down your street isn't the same as practising heel in the garden.
Nor is it an opportunity to allow them to move freely within a group hike, exposing them to other balanced dogs.
Your dog acts on every single impulse in the day to day
A door opens, it’s gone. There is a knock at the door and the barking lasts for 5 minutes.
Your dog watches your husband walk off and loses it’s mind.
The ability to regulate emotions is near on impossible let alone when they come across a dog on a walk.
And don’t even get me started on the lead
Or more specifically, the relationship you have with your lead.
Or lack of.
For a lot of dogs, the lead has become a source of:
conflict and frustration
something to drag into
a sign that when the tension goes on, shit is about to go down
We have lost the ability to communicate to our dogs in a tactile way.
Sometimes the walk itself is too much
You’re asking too much too soon.
And while it comes from a place of love, you’ve made a thing out of a thing.
Your dog is being taken on walks that are too much for where they’re at in their journey, in places they are already classically conditioned to in a way that makes getting through to them difficult.
They can’t even take a reward outside of those home training sessions yet, but they’re being expected to cope with the full pressure of the real world.
You don’t want to say no
I don’t like punishing my dogs, but it is a necessary part of dog training. There comes a point where all the training we do enables us to fairly communicate to our dogs that, hey, this is not acceptable. And because the foundations have been put in, the risk of fallout is minimal.
So you can see, it’s easy to find ourselves in a spot where we’re training our dogs, but they are still reacting on walks…
What actually helps reactive dogs improve?
Management
Preventing overwhelming situations whenever possible.
Setting our dogs, and ourselves, up for the situations we are both actually ready for.
Our own handling and timing
Controlled set ups matter and we can’t rush to get out into the real world without doing our controlled set ups first.
We talk about these a lot in the online community. These are the sessions that enable us to practise the skills we have built and increase the difficulty gradually to help reach our end goal.
We cannot skip these.
This is the juicy part of training that helps us iron things out.
Shifting beyond obedience
Sure, a heel, recall and down all have their place. They can allow us to put our dogs into situations that are helpful around other dogs. But they should be in addition to free walks with appropriate dogs, building new patterned responses, redirects and long line work. That might look like teaching your dog to look away when they see another dog, or come back to you instead of reacting.
It’s not just about having commands.
It’s about teaching the dog how to make better choices.
Final thoughts
If your dog reacts on walks despite training, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. I mean hey, you read this far. You clearly want what’s best for your dog. It just means there are gaps in the training and it’s time to figure out what they are.
The good news is, that’s something you can control.
If you’re looking for some extra help with reactivity training, check out these videos inside the membership:
Lead Pressure With Forrest Micke
Reactivity Webinar March 2026
A Discussion About Redirects Parts 1 & 2
A Controlled Set Up For A Nervous Dog