Obedience Classes are held on Monday evenings and Thursday daytime and evenings.
For more information contact: Obedience Chairperson – Mary Lester: palimar68@gmail.com
For class registration questions contact: Obedience Class Registrar – Betts McKeown: 269-342-5913
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS AND PREREQUISITES
Note: Not all classes are offered during each class session.
| AKC STAR Puppy: Star Puppy, a program developed by the American Kennel Club, is designed to get your puppy off to a good start in life. Your dog will learn obedience skills such as sit, down, come, and beginner heeling and focus work. (Prerequisite: Offered to puppies between the ages of 8 weeks and 6 months.) |
| Beginner: Training techniques that truly work. In this engaging, hands-on class, you’ll explore key principles of dog training while teaching your pup essential skills, and developing a relationship with your pup; Self Control – helping your dog pause and make better choices; Voluntary Attention – keeping focus on you, even with distractions; Sit, Down & Stay – cues that hold up in real life; Reliable Recall – coming when called, even around other dogs; Loose Leash Walking – enjoying calm, connected walks together. By the end, you’ll not only have a better-trained dog – you’ll have a deeper bond, better communication, and the confidence to continue your pup’s learning journey at home. Grab your leash and let’s get started! (Prerequisite: Offered to puppies that have completed STAR Puppy and/or puppies & dogs older than 6 months.) |
| Advanced Beginner: This class is for dog and handler teams that have successfully completed the Beginner obedience course. It will enhance basic obedience. It reinforces foundational commands like sit, stay, down, and recall under higher levels of distraction, for longer durations, and at a greater distance. It’s also an ideal step for those interested in dog sports like Rally and Obedience. (Prerequisite: Beginner or instructor approval.) |
| Canine Good Citizen: The Canine Good Citizen (CGC) program is designed for the responsible dog owner to reinforce and reward a well-mannered dog to have good manners at home and in the community. (Prerequisite: None.) |
| Community Canine (CGCA): This advanced CGC class is designed to ensure you have a well-behaved dog while you’re out and about in the community, including walking on a busy sidewalk, in a local park, through a crowd, or sitting politely at an intersection, etc. (Prerequisite: Canine Good Citizen.) |
| Heelwork: This class focuses on building a solid foundation with heeling skills. Teams learn to perform left, right, and about turns, figure 8’s, pace changes, and halts. Multiple heel work drills will be performed to strengthen the owner’s cueing, footwork, and posture in heeling exercises, while the dog learns to maintain heel position with attention by reading the owner’s nonverbal behavior. (Prerequisite: Advanced Beginner and/or instructor approval.) |
| Advanced Heelwork: This class is a continuation of Heel Work class. It will focus on honing the heeling skills taught in Heel Work 1. Teams will perform drills to reinforce what they learned in heel work. (Prerequisite: Heelwork and/or instructor approval.) |
| Novice Obedience: This class focuses on the AKC novice exercises. The stand for exam, recall, stays (sits & downs) will be worked on. There will be some heeling. This class will help teams get ready to show in AKC Novice Obedience. (Prerequisite: Advanced Beginner and/or instructor approval.) |
| Skill Building: This class focuses on teaching stationary, recall, jumping and retrieving skills needed for competition obedience, including games to build drive, engagement and listening skills. Owners become more consistent and effective in using their “marker” system to communicate with their dogs. (Prerequisite: Advanced Beginner or instructor approval.) |
| Open/Beginning Utility: This class focuses on the application of competition skills in teaching the Utility exercises. Individual competition skills are together to teach signals, directed jumping, scent discrimination, moving stand and examination, and directed retrieve. Gloves and scent articles are required. (Prerequisite: Skill Building or instructor approval.) |
| Advanced Open/Utility: This class is designed to strengthen the dog’s performance of open, and utility exercises the first time on the command. Dogs are exposed to ring distractions and proofing skills that will build handler and dog confidence, focus, and understanding of each exercise. A dumbbell, gloves, and scent articles are required. (Prerequisite: Instructor approval.) |
| Rally: AKC Rally is a team sport. You and your dog will learn how to perform the signs and navigate a course, side-by-side, as you steer your dog through a course of 10-20 different signs. Each of these signs includes instructions regarding the next skill that is to be performed. The dog and handler move continuously throughout the course with the dog under control at the handler’s left side. There is a clear sense of teamwork between the dog and handler both during and between the numbered signs. Although each performance is timed, having a good race time is not the goal; it is all about working as a team while performing the skills, with the dog under control. This class focuses on rally signs and practice courses for AKC Rally trials. (Prerequisite: Dogs must have loose leash heeling skills.) |
| Scent Work: Inspired by professional detection dogs, this class turns scent-finding into a fun and rewarding sport for any dog. You’ll learn to develop your dog’s natural scenting abilities using essential oils featured in AKC trials—Birch, Anise, Clove, and Cypress. Each search scenario is tailored to your team’s experience level, building drive for the target odor while sharpening your handling skills. Whether you’re training for fun or preparing to complete, these classes build the confidence and precision needed to succeed in official scent work trials. Any dog can participate, from puppies to very old or retired dogs. (Prerequisite: None.) |