New Year 2019

66 WR180036 Janet’s Puppy Skool is an award-winning training school, devoted to being a place where people feel welcome and their dogs enjoy returning to on a weekly basis. Taking time out of her busy schedule, the firm’s Founder, Janet Garrett provides us with a detailed insight into how she created and maintains her successful business. Janet’s Puppy Skool started life at the beginning of 2007 and we are now going into our 13th year. After many years of Showing and having fun with my own dogs, I decided in 2005 to study for some pretty hefty qualifications. When I passed them with Distinction, I was encouraged by my family and friends to leave my job as a bilingual Personal Assistant and start my own dog training school and Behavioural practice. During the early stages of planning the business, I wanted it to be one of the biggest, most talked about and most important dog training centres in the area. A place where owners and their dogs would feel welcome and would love to come each week. Here at Janet’s Puppy Skool, our strapline is ‘ Fun and Friendly ’ and I am thrilled when our customers tell us repeatedly that our classes are just that. Keeping it Cool in Puppy Skool Taking it back to the start, one of my earliest training memories is bundling my beautiful big rough collie on to a bus after school twice a week and taking him to training classes when I was only about 10 or 11. Even during this time, I was well aware of how important training classes are. Although I don’t remember if he was particularly obedient, I can recall that I could take him anywhere – on buses, to my friends’ houses, into busy areas and even to pet shows, which I loved. I have always been fascinated and can’t get enough of seeing dogs behaving well. However, I do not mean the sort of serious obedience we see and wonder at every year at Crufts which needs so much full-time dedication. I mean every day well behaved dogs taking their rightful place in daily life alongside their owners, for example on the