Northern beaches: Amy’s Puppy preschool warning over ‘COVID puppies’

A new puppy was top of the list for many households when lockdown happened. But now a dog trainer has revealed what every new owner should teach their pup post COVID.

Amy Smith, 40, of Mona Vale, with one of the puppies she is training. Picture: Supplied.

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They’re being called ‘COVID puppies’ – dogs that were bought during the pandemic lockdown.

Dog trainer Amy Smith, 40, of Mona Vale, said like elsewhere she saw a huge spike in ‘COVID puppies’ on the northern beaches.

From mid March her business Amy’s Puppy Preschool has seen more than double the number of owners it usually sees a month.

Brian, 3, and Calvin, eight months, with owner Amy Smith, a dog trainer leading puppy training class via Zoom. Picture: Supplied.

She said she has also spoken to other training schools on the peninsula and found they have also seen an increase in new recruits.

“We normally have 350 puppies a year, but since mid-March we’ve trained 250 puppies,” she said.

She said early on in the pandemic they realised they really needed to concentrate on helping owners bring up independent dogs, even though owners were at home all the time.

“We realised early on separation anxiety could become a huge problem when life returned to normal,” she said.

“It is important we raise independent little dogs.

“Even though dogs owners have been stuck at home it is important they pop out and leave their dog at home.

One of the puppies Cinna who has graduated from Amy's Puppy Preschool. Picture: Supplied.

“What has been happening is that the dogs just follow their owners all around the house.

“When life gets back to normal they’re going to suffer separation anxiety.”

Mrs Smith also said they fear the number of dogs being handed to rescue homes will start increasing in about three months time.

She said by properly training dogs she hopes to help stop that from happening.

“We’ve already got some puppies with new owners after people got their dogs home and realised they couldn’t cope,” she said.

A puppy checking into dog training Zoom meeting. Picture: Supplied.

Ms Smith said because of COVID-19 restrictions they had to move all the training classes online, something they had planned to introduce before the pandemic anyway, alongside face-to-face classes.

As a result she’s had new dog owners from all over Sydney, Melbourne and even London join the Zoom classes.

“In the morning classes we would have people drinking coffees and in the evenings it would be beer or wine,” she said.

“It worked really well.”

Amy Smith , 40, of Amy's Puppy Preschool, with her pup Calvin, a cavalier King Charles spaniel, eight months, and Brian, three, a Baird. Picture: Supplied.

She said while they are continuing with online training and some prerecorded video support this week they resumed face-to-face training too.

Ms Smith, who has Brian, 3, a Baird, and a pup Calvin, a cavalier King Charles spaniel, who is eight months old, said they are often part of the lessons and Calvin is the star of the prerecorded training videos.