I have been aware of the American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizen program for ages, and I always imagined that my dogs would rather easily pass the test. After all, I’ve put hundreds of hours into training them and consider them to be very friendly, well trained, and well-mannered.
An opportunity arose to take the test at my friend’s training center and I thought, “What the heck? Let’s get a title on these mutts!” Never mind that I opted for this opportunity two days before the test.
However, once I started looking over the specific behaviors to be tested, I identified two items that were likely to be our Achilles heel:
In the first, “Accepting a friendly stranger,” your dog is supposed to stay more or less still—at least, not move toward a person who approaches you and your dog and then greets you. If the dog steps in front of you to greet the person, he flunks, even if he is calm and doesn’t jump and isn’t unfriendly; he’s supposed to remain at your side. Shoot; both of my dogs are super friendly and very likely to move toward a person who greets me, if only to sniff their shoes and solicit petting.
In the second, the setup is essentially the same. You walk forward with your dog in a heel position, and a person walks toward you with their dog in a heel position; then both handlers stop and have a brief interaction. Both dogs are on the outside (as if passengers in the passenger seat of a car, with “drivers” stopped and talking to each other out the driver’s window). Your dog is not permitted to cross in front of you—either to greet, sniff, or menace the other person or their dog. I did think my dogs would be able to ignore the other dog, but again, I thought that it was likely that they would want to sniff or greet the other human. I was right about the test items that would be hardest for my dogs, but not the specific part of each challenge.
We practiced this behavior for, oh, at least two minutes apiece, in front of the training center right before the test. And guess what? That’s not enough practice time!
The results for both dogs (and me!) were identical; they flunked on the same item, “Reaction to Another Dog,” though I thought they would easily ignore the dog and be focused more on greeting the human. However, though they both displayed a brief interest in the human (whom, with prompting, they were able to keep themselves from greeting in the first test item (“Accepting a Friendly Stranger”), and happily got to know in item 2 (“Sitting Politely for Petting”) and #3 (Appearance and Grooming,” where the evaluator brushes the dog and examines his ears and each front foot), they both took too much interest in the other dog. Despite more prompting (my repeated use of the “Off!” cue), both stepped in front of me in an attempt to sniff or greet the other dog. Womp, womp, that’s a fail, even if they didn’t pull hard, leap about, or growl. They were supposed to stay at my side, and despite being cued to “Stay,” and “Off” (same as “Leave it”), they didn’t.
These results were not of great importance to me, but I do feel challenged now to sign up for the next local offering of this test, and actually train and practice for it. Though I feel that the expectations of the test should be within every dog’s easy ability to accomplish, clearly they take a bit more training and practice to pass, even with very well behaved dogs!
Note that at no time did I issue any sort of rebuke, tight leash, or yank of a “correction” to my dogs, even though it’s likely that both of them would have readily heeded my “Off!” cue had I been more intense about it. Passing at any cost wasn’t the point; if I couldn’t get them to pay attention to and perform the desired behaviors for my normal cues and tone, then I need to practice this with them. And the truth is, I so seldom walk them on leash in the presence of strangers and strange dogs that we effectively have only rarely practiced these specific behaviors. Having the expectation of certain behaviors without practicing them is just dumb!
Even though this was a formal test in a controlled and artificial setting, the experience was a great reminder to me that it’s not smart to have expectations of our dogs for behaviors that we don’t specifically practice! We expect them to generalize their knowledge about things (such as “Stay” and “Off”), but if we don’t practice these behaviors in a wide array of conditions, we certainly can’t blame them for failing to demonstrate them under different conditions than the few environments and situations we do practice in.
Boone, Woody, and I will be practicing to ace that CGC as soon as we possibly can.
Do you think you and your dogs could pass this test?
My three year old Labrador Retriever, who I have had since she was 9 weeks old, could not pass this for the same reasons. I love my retriever’s friendliness, but you have inspired me. It’s time to practice this.
No way would my dogs pass this test, and 3 of them are certified therapy dogs who make regular visits. I guess for a formal test, you always have to practice to the test, in spite of being able to handle practical requirements just fine.
Yes I had two dogs that passed this test as well as advance good citizen. My biggest concern was leaving their site even though we had practiced this many times at classes I took them to. They passed it all and went on to be therapy dogs for me.
Good obedience classes with consistent work pays off