Pup Exams: A Demon or Not?

Lets have a thought experiment.

Say you went to a pup workshop, or met with a handler and they begun testing you on your “skills” as a pup. The handler calls out “present!” what do you do? how do you know your present is his present, have you both talked about what to do in that situation, have you talked bout how to do the right in depending on any change of enviroment, crowd or location? After all these kind of questions internally and after some time trying to please the Handler or Instructor, they come up to you and say “you failed too many things, you aren’t a real pup”

how would you feel? how would you react? hurt? motivated? Sadly, this situation happens in the community, when someone feels like they have the power to tell people if they are good enough to be a pup or not without realising that just because they have their own set of rules and etiquette, that they shouldn’t impose it on others even if they think their way is the best way.

Pup who Thrive With Exams

Are you a pup and/or a submissive who loves being controlled? being dominated by someone or like the traditional humiliation style of BDSM human pup play? its people who are this type of personality who thrive with meeting the expectations of an individual who gives them a test of their skills.

Pups who Don’t Thrive With Exams.

Are you like me tha every question raises twenty more? that realise and want to promote individualism in the community? people who are more focused on everyone enjoying and expressing themselves?

I have heard stories from pups who go in full of enthusiasm and energy to learn and explore pup play after coming to know that they identify as a pup, only to leave emotionally hurt and crying after being told the aren’t a real pup an questioning thei own identity.

“Must Be Sane” Paradox

There are handlers and trainers out there who keep using “you must be sane” as a requirement to be a pup. I’m here to remind you all that this a paradox in itself and a silly one at that. Not only are there a large number of community members with diagnosed mental health conditions, but also many of them including myself find pup play to be a major benefit to their everyday lives.
Also to consider that a majority, if not everyone has some kind of mental health issue, whether its managed or not doesn’t mean those people should be excluded from anything.

Conclusion

No one has authority to tell you who you are and are not. It is up to you if you give someone that power and they cant make you give it up. Be yourself and express yourself and we will all strive and grow together to show the community what we can all be Beautiful, Unique & Confident Puppies!

Not better, only different

Pup exams are not something we shouldn’t call inferior, or, should be pushed out of the community. If we do that, we are no better than the exam holders that push people away from the community with their ideas of imposing their concepts on others.

But we should consider them with a grain of salt and remember some key points below:

• Is this persons pup play style matching my own?
• No one can tell you what you are or aren’t.
• Are they promoting you to express yourself? or themselves onto you?
• Just because they taught you things you don’t like, don’t disregard it, take is as a lesson of learning things that you can cross out of your list of things to explore on the journey of expressing yourself.
• You should not sell yourself short by ignoring your own likes and dislikes to be accepted by someone or a group in the community, were all one big family and the majority of people out there will love you to be who you want to be in the community.

No answer to the questions in these points are wrong, but just some questions you can ask yourself before going into these kind of pup workshops.