Kennel Club Good Citizen Awards by Sue Knight
Good Citizen Awards are also good PR for Weimaraners!
I’ve always tried to promote the Weimaraner in a positive way since discovering this wonderful versatile breed in 1984. Featuring on the front cover of Dog Training Weekly is a good way to show they can be trained!
At first glance, the exercises for each award may appear very simple but on reading the description it is not that easy!
KC Good Citizen Awards are now widely available at dog clubs, working tests or country shows. They are non-competitive, either you pass or are deemed ‘not ready’.
You can turn up completely anonymous and have a go. I entered Georgie (my very extrovert male) for the Bronze when he was 9 months old. This was held in a park with all the distractions of footballs and joggers. Yes, I was nervous but he passed and gave me the confidence to persevere with him at obedience classes.
Having trained two bitches, I thought I was ready for a dog, but Georgie proved to be a challenge. I tried several obedience classes before I found one that suited. This was a very large hall and Weimaraner friendly teachers.
Basic obedience is the foothold to other more exciting activities, where control and partnership are essential to progress.
Give it a go, you never know where it might lead!
Gold by Jo Laurens
Jo and Slate have just completed their Kennel Club Good Citizen Gold Award. Slate is 18 months.....
Here are the tests:
1. Road Walk - loose lead walking outside. Changing pace and dog must keep pace with handler. Dog must remain under control at kerb side and when crossing roads.
2. Return to Handler's Side - Dog must return to handler's side and walk at heel for 10 paces.
3. Walk Free Beside Handler - Dog to walk at heel for 40 paces (not obedience heel work, just by handler's side)
4. Down Stay for 2 mins with handler out of sight for 30 secs of this.
5. Sendaway to a Mat with a down on the mat.
6. Stop the Dog - Dog is recalled towards handler and must sit on command, at a distance.
7. Relaxed isolation - Dog must be tied up and left for 5 mins, out of sight of handler. Dog must not be distressed or whine or bark but may change position - not a stay.
8. Food manners - Dog to wait for handler's command before eating.
9. Examination of dog - Dog to accept being examined as a vet may examine it.
10. The handler has to answer 8 out of 10 questions correctly.
As for how long we've been training for it - well, we did most of the training by ourselves actually!! We did the Bronze test at a champ show when Slate was 6 months, then I managed to find a dog club holding a Silver test nearby and we went along just to the test, without going to any of their classes. And for the Gold award I found a club which was holding a test, but they made me do the whole 6 wk course and wouldn't let me just take the test. It gave us a chance to practise the relaxed isolation and the out of sight down stays in the venue where the test would be, so Slate could get used to it, so it was worth it for that reason.
A lot of the tests are similar to the stuff you'd train a gundog to do - perhaps the only one which is different is the sendaway. And we've been doing gundoggy stuff for a while now so I think it was just an extension of that really!
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