Mission Accomplished

Jedi and I working on the Front position

When I took over the presidency of my German Shepherd Dog Club 18 months ago I had five goals:

1. Familiarize everybody with the breed standard, terminology and what makes a GSD
2. Get out more with our dogs
3. Energize meetings with door prizes, guest speakers and mini-workshops
4. Network with other local dog clubs/groups
5. Reinstate weekly training meetings

I've done OK with the first goal, and really well with the next three. The last one, however, has been difficult. There were quite a few roadblocks.

• We had a trainer willing to do the classes, but she’s 75 and doesn’t like to drive at night. This means we had to find a training site that was close to her.
• It was hard to get club members involved. Everyone said they’d like weekly training but very few were willing to look for a location.
• We had a member with the space on his property, but his home owners insurance said no, despite that fact that our club has a $1 million policy.
• We approached a couple businesses, but they said no, even though the Club has insurance.
• We found a few City parks but they were either too far, closed at dusk, poorly lit at night, or prohibited dogs.
• THEN we had a hard time picking a date/time for weekly training. (And when we finally did people complained about the drive. GRRR.)

But after a year . . . voila. We found a public park with adequate lighting and parking. It has restrooms with flushing (albeit gross) toilets. It’s five minutes off a major freeway and a straight shot on a major road. And we have eight committed members taking classes. I feel good knowing that I'll leave my position in June having accomplished everything I set out to do.

So how's training going? Pretty good! We're only three weeks into it, so . . . Currently we’re working on socialization and basic obedience/rally skills. Our goal is to enter the Rally Novice trials in October. I look forward to sharing Jedi’s progress. Later, -- K