Thank You:) And a Few More Details About CGC

Beryl and I were totally blown away with all the congratulatory comments about her CGC success:)  We'd like to thank everyone who took the time to write something.  It means a lot to us!

As a matter of interest to hopefully some readers I thought I'd copy and paste the New Zealand requirements for CGC (Canine Good Citizen) as they seem to differ slightly from country to country.

But before I do that, in Saturday's Post I forgot to mention that the handler also has to do a short written test before the tests with your dog start.  The questions were all quite basic but the one that had me thinking was "describe in one word how dogs learn"!  It's hard to narrow it down to just one word, lol.  At least it was for me.  I ended up putting 'repetition' and it must have been near enough:)  And also I forgot to mention a test we had to do where Beryl was supposed to play with a toy and then calm down again.  Well, she wouldn't play with the toy that was her favourite the night before!  Typical Princess, lol.  It's OK if they don't want to play though, that's not a fail.

Since the 1950s, Dog Obedience Clubs have been at the forefront of dog training throughout the country. Clubs provide basic Domestic Dog training classes for responsible dog owners. They teach the owner how to train the dog while showing people how to ensure their dog becomes a great lifetime companion.

'Canine Good Citizen' goes a step further. Dogs are trained and then tested in simulated everyday situations in a relaxed atmosphere. Dogs and their owners are identified and rewarded for the training and demeanour to be reliable family members. Canine Good Citizen ensures that dog can be a respected member of the community because the dog is trained to be well mannered at home, in public, and around other dogs.

Testing requires an assessment by a recognised New Zealand Kennel Club Assessor.

Canine Good Citizen Foundation
1. Appearance, handling and responsibility
a. Responsibility and care
b. Public cleanliness and identification
c. Examination of the dog by handler
d. Grooming and inspection of the dog by the assessor
2. Food manners
a. Person eating
b. Dog eating
3. Accepting a friendly stranger
4. Accepting being patted by a friendly stranger
5. Walk on lead through a door/gate in a controlled manner
6. Return to handler
7. Walk on lead
8. Controlled walk through people and distractions
a. Pedestrian traffic
b. Distractions
9. Stay tied on lead
10. Meeting a stranger and their dog
11. Supervised separation
12. Playing with the dog
Canine Good Citizen – Bronze
13. Responsibility and care
14. Food manners
15. Stay in one place (untied, handler in sight)
16. Stay tied on lead (handler out of sight)
17. Staying still and return to handler
18. Stationary vehicle control
a. Into a vehicle
b. Out of a vehicle
19. Control at steps2
20. Walk on lead and reaction to distractions in a public area
a. Walk on lead
b. Distractions
Canine Good Citizen – Silver
21. Responsibility and care
22. Examination of the dog by a stranger (handler at a distance)
23. Stay in a down position (untied, handler out of sight)
24. Return to handler (with distractions)
25. Stop the dog
26. Advanced vehicle control
a. Into a vehicle
b. Vehicle is moving
c. Out of a vehicle
27. Staying still and return to handler in a public area
28. Calm and controlled behaviour whilst in a busy public area
a. Walking
b. Staying in one area
c. Accept being touched by a stranger
Canine Good Citizen – Gold
29. Responsibility and care
30. Walking beside the handler, without a lead
31. Sending the dog to a known article and staying
32. Parked vehicle control
a. Into a vehicle and leaving dog
b. Distractions outside the vehicle whilst parked
c. Out of a vehicle
33. Delivering a dropped article to hand
34. Another person (other than handler) walking the dog in a public area, with distractions
a. Handing the dog over to the nominated person
b. Person walking the dog in a public area
c. Distractions whilst person walking the dog in a public area
35. Stay in a down position (untied, handler out of sight) in a public area
36. Stop the dog and recall in a public area
37. Stay tied on lead (relaxed isolation) in a medium-busy public area
38. Walking, with distractions, in a busy public area
a. Walking
b. Distractions


Obviously this is just a very brief summary.  A lot of the tests are timed, it's a bit unnerving (as if I wasn't nervous enough!) having the assessor standing nearby with a stop watch while you're doing the 'meeting a stranger and their dog' and 'not molesting a stranger eating' tests and having no idea how long you have to make small talk, lol!  


Oh, and for the recall at Foundation level you can ask the assessor to hold your dog's collar while you walk away, which is what I did.


Hsin-Yi from Honey The Great Dane wondered if Beryl and I are going to carry on with the CGC levels.  Apart from not being at all good at staying, I think Beryl is capable of passing the Bronze so that's my training mission, work on stays.  I'm fairly sure a 'down stay' is OK.  If it has to be a 'sit stay' then we're pretty well sunk, lol.  As for going any further, hmm, I'll wait til we pass the Bronze to make that decision.  A couple of things in Silver are quite tough.  And I don't even know what some of the tests entail.


Honey was the first Great Dane to get her Gold CGC level in New Zealand.  I wonder if any others have got it since then?


Well, it was break up night at CGC training tonight.  A fun night with some games and having time to chat to people and just relax.  We both enjoyed ourselves and poor Frankie sat home by himself for the third time in 4 days:(  But I was given some chicken frames and I gave him one when we got home and he was pretty happy with that!  No more training for 2 weeks until after the school holidays.  But there are plenty of doggy things lined up for us to do.    


Yesterday afternoon Beryl and I went to the horse riding establishment where Rachel works with Fatima, Louie, Lucy and their 2 foster Greyhounds, Hugo and Snow.  They all got to run around in a big paddock with Benjamin, the resident Corgi, who loves Greyhounds, especially Lucy:)  I didn't get any real good photos but here's one of Beryl

Running by herself (and looking slightly Kangarooish?)

She still isn't confident about running with the pack since her tumble when she was with them a month ago.

She wanted to but she didn't!  That's Benjamin being a Greyhound:)

After Beryl had a couple of hours rest she and Frankie and I went to the river where I threw a few sticks for Frankie to make up for leaving him by himself earlier.

He enjoyed that:)

And we have to have a 'Beryl is pretty' photo, don't we?

Today we went to the park with the same crew and Frankie and Lucy (his BFF) had a blast

Frankie and Lucy having a breather after doing lots of 

Wrestling

Notice how Lucy's always on top!!

And running ... I couldn't get them both in one photo!!

Beryl and I have had a few quite busy doggy days lately and I've tried to keep Frankie from feeling too left out.  Tomorrow night is Rally O fun night before the break over the school holidays and I think I'll just take Frankie along.  He's due some 'just me and Mum' time:)


I hope you've all been having fun with your dogs too:)

It's Been a Nerve Wracking Morning!

When I got up this morning I saw that it was going to be a gorgeous Autumn day, not cloudy and wet like most of the week has been.  My heart sank a little ... now I had no excuse to not take Beryl to the CGC (Canine Good Citizen) Assessments being held at our local dog training club!  It would have been a waste of time if it had been wet as she would have been very miserable.

So I packed all our gear up and off we went.  I've been a nervous wreck since last night but I managed to take everything we needed.  We got there early enough for Beryl to have a good wander around and go to the toilet.  Then there was a lot of standing around waiting.  There were 5 dogs going for Foundation and we went 4th so I had a bit of an idea of what we had to do, although most of the steps were done in a little garden that you couldn't see inside from where the rest of us were waiting.

Our turn came and when I went to pick up my bag holding her food bowl and food in a sealed plastic container she stuck her head in the bag and started sniffing.  Hmm, I thought, that's odd.  Normally I have to coerce Beryl to eat her tea and just to be on the safe side I'd given her a small breakfast this morning which she doesn't usually have.

Anyway, we went down to the garden and did everything asked of us in there, let a stranger say hello and pat her, walk politely up and down steps, stand quietly while I talk to a stranger and her dog, not molest another stranger sitting on a bench eating biscuits while we talked.  I thought she did good with all that:)  Outside the garden I had to pick up a bag and go through a gate, shut the gate, walk a ways into that area then go back through the gate, without Beryl impeding me.  That was pretty good considering we hadn't really done it formally before.  Then I had to give Beryl a physical type examination like would be done at the vets, easy peasy.  And the assessor had to do the same thing, easy again.

After that came the 'wait for your food' test.  I'd brought along pretty much her usual type meal, cooked chicken mince with rice and gravy but hadn't added the secret ingredient, home made beef stock, which makes it yummy so she will eat it!  I don't know if it was because it was fresh cooked last night or what but boy, did she want some NOW!!  She ended up doing a beautiful sit and wait for 5 seconds but sheesh, she had me worried about this test and I thought it would be a piece of cake.  And she ate most of it when I told her she could!

The last exercise in this set was the recall.  And this did have me worried as I had to walk quite a distance away and turn and call her with about 20 acres of empty park behind me!!!  I could see Beryl tearing past me and running laps around us all:)  And I think she had ideas of doing that too but she slowed down enough when she got to me so I could grab her collar:)  Whew.

After that we had to walk through a 'quiet crowd' of maybe 8 or 9 people and then the people had to be a 'noisy crowd'.  I think Beryl enjoyed the noise the most:)

The last exercises were a couple of stays, the first one is with the dog tied up and the owners walk about 20 paces away and just talk or whatever for 5 minutes before returning to our dogs and the dogs mustn't jump on us or be excited when we return.  That was fine.  Next one we had to hand our dogs to a stranger to hold while we went out of sight for 4 minutes.  We hadn't really done this before, Beryl had only been tied up while I went out of sight.  And the last time we did that she did get excited and jump on me when I got back, lol!  But she was great.

Oh, so you're wondering if she got her CGC?  YES, my Princess now has a little title and is the 4th Greyhound in New Zealand to have it.  (All 5 dogs passed)  I was thinking she might be the 1st Greyhound to go for it and fail:)  But boy, am I glad it's over.  So was Beryl, this is what she did for half an hour after we got home

Frankie is very proud of his big sister:)

She didn't leave him much room on their couch though!

See the little smile:)  

You all know Lucy, Frankie and Beryl's BFF.  Well today she not only got her Bronze level but also her Silver!!  She's a legend:)  Again the first Greyhound in New Zealand to get them.

Go the little Ferret:)

So, that's been our excitement for the day, did you do anything exciting today?

And it's Saturday Pet Bloggers Hop time. Please join us in wandering around pet blogs and making new friends. The instructions can be found at all of the first three sites listed:)

Louie as we've never seen him before!

Louie is Lucy's big brother and he's the first Greyhound I ever met, which was in about late October 2009.  My first impression of Louie was what a dignified, majestic animal he was:-)

Louie and Fatima

After a few minutes talking with Fatima, his Mum, I began thinking how boring he was just standing next to her not showing any great interest in anything!  I didn't see them again for a good few weeks until we bumped into each other at the park I'd told Fatima about.  Louie was much more animated this time and I started to see a glimpse of the 'real' Louie.  As we began to see more and more of Louie at the park I soon realised that he isn't boring at all, but a very deep dog who is secure in the knowledge of who he is and where he is and doesn't see the need to impress anybody or any dog.  Louie was a champion racer in his younger days, won lots of money and races and was 'Dog of the Year' twice.  Now, I'm not too sure what that means but in Greyhound racing it's pretty special.  And his racing name of Charleston State is revered by many.  So by the time Louie was retired from racing at 5 he'd pretty much been there and done that.

Louie at the river

What is remarkable about Louie is that after his spectacular racing career was over he began a new career learning to become a Canine Good Citizen, which he passed at his first attempt aged 7:-)  He would have got his Bronze too if his other Mum, Rachel, didn't have to go to a wedding that afternoon!  Louie loves learning and having a job to do and is also enjoying Rally O.  I forgot to mention that his little sister, Lucy, also passed her CGC on the same day, only about 5 months after coming to live with Fatima and Rachel.  Louie and Lucy are the only Greyhounds in New Zealand to have their CGC's:-) 

Now, you may be wondering what all this has to do with the title of this post?  Well, down at the river the other day Louie did something that no-one had ever seen him do before ....

He took 3 minutes to dig that hole, I cut the video down to 1 minute.  We'd seen him have fun before, in his own fashion!  He is our 'fun police', lol!  But to throw off his majestic, dignified persona and dig a hole in the sand, that was a whole new side to Louie that we didn't know existed:-)

If I hadn't met Louie and then Lucy I wouldn't have Beryl and I'll always be grateful to Louie for showing me what wonderful dogs Greyhounds are:-)