Obedience and Behavior
Basic Obedience: Learn to communicate with your dog more effectively, resulting in a stronger bond and more fun. We’ll cover the foundations of dog obedience, using the naturals of dog behavior and our dogs’ innate ability to problem-solve. Teach your dog focus and attention, control (sit, down, stay), safety behaviors (come, wait), and manners (polite leash walking, greetings), and more. Tricks and play are added to motivate and challenge your dog. We’ll talk about health, handling, nutrition, toys, and more. Homework provided. No pre-requisites, any dog, any age. 6 sessions.
AKC STAR Puppy: Basic Obedience for puppies under 1 year old at start of class. Completion of 6 sessions qualifies your puppy for this designation of your commitment to Socialization, Training, Activity and Responsibility for your special friend.
Intermediate Obedience: Team up with your dog to fine-tune basic behaviors and learn new ones. Leash work includes heel, polite turns, speed changes, and more. Sit and down stays with distance, duration and distractions will challenge your dog’s focus. If you think your dog was paying attention before, then stand by to be amazed! This class moves quickly and requires work at home. Prerequisite: Basic Obedience, STAR Puppy or permission of instructor.
Advanced Obedience/Canine Good Citizen Prep: Prepare for the AKC CGC test with challenging exercises and new behaviors. Stand stays, courteous greetings and long-line work are among the new skills your dog will take on. This class moves quickly and requires work at home. Pre-requisite: Intermediate Obedience or permission of the instructor.
Dog Socials & Greetings Workshops: Teach your dog the polite way to meet new people and other dogs, and brush up on canine courtesy and socialization skills. Any dog, any age, any skill level. Single session.
Recall Workshops: Does your dog come when you call, every time you call? If not, then this workshop is for you. Get started with basic skills that build a reliable recall, and learn games that support this life-saving behavior. Your dog will also gain experience at recall in the most distracting environment of all – surrounded by other dogs! Any dog, any age, any skill level. 2 sessions.
Additional obedience/behavioral classes and workshops include: Loose Leash Walking, Parlor Tricks and Games, Shy-Fi (for your shy dog) and AKC Canine Good Citizen testing. Contact Beth Ann for more information.
K9 Nose Work
Introduction to K9 Nose Work: Join this fun searching activity and new dog sport that any dog (and any person) can do. This is a foundation class to learn the game, develop your dog’s drive, and start to learn how to read your dog. You can take this as a stand-alone class to learn a new activity for your dog, or use it as a basis for testing and competition. This is not an obedience class, but does not interfere with obedience training. It’s a great way to spend time with your dog and enjoy his problem-solving and searching abilities – and, it’s fun! No prerequisites, any dog, any age.
Continued Nose Work – Skill Building: This is an overview class – 2 weeks each on Interiors, Exteriors, and Vehicles. We’ll move to new search areas, further challenging your dog’s ability to drive to source. Your time working with your dog pays off as you use his “alert” to meet timed searches in a variety of circumstances. Prepare for competition and sport. Pre-requisite: Introduction to K9 Nose Work.
Introduction to Odor: Teach your dog to search for specific (non-food) scents. Basis for Odor Recognition Test and competition. Pre-requisite: Introduction to K9 Nose Work.
Continued Odor – Skill Building: This is an overview class – 2 weeks each on Interiors, Exteriors, and Vehicles. We’ll move to new search areas, further challenging your dog’s ability to drive to source. Your time working with your dog pays off as you use his “alert” to meet timed searches in a variety of circumstances. Prepare for competition and sport. Pre-requisite: Introduction to Odor.
Continued Odor – Exteriors: This class focuses on exterior searches. The challenge continues as your dog learns to work wind currents and to focus in distracting environments. Pre-requisite: Introduction to Odor.
Continued Odor – Vehicles: Watch your dog learn to search vehicles for unique odor. Vehicles are challenging because air currents move around them in unexpected ways – your dog will know! We start with single vehicle searches and move on to searching for odor among several vehicles. Pre-requisite: Introduction to Odor.