We live near Bury St Edmunds and I'm having trouble finding a good, fun, dog club. We go to Great Barton, and although they are fine for what they do, it's too limiting for me. We spend nearly the whole class practising heelwork positions interspersed with an occasional recall. This would be useful as I do like to work obedience, but it's not the only thing I want from my club. While we were with the in-laws I went to a club in Holbrook which was much more varied, a little fun agility one work, some obedience another, a bit of rally another. But that was a lunchtime class and I am now working all day, also it's a 40 minute drive. I am taking the puppy there as the Great Barton lot didn't have an opening until March, but I'm finding the 2nd level puppy class much too simple for Hetty, who I have taught a lot to already. Eg last night we were starting the 'wait' command, and they were teaching it correctly with just stepping in front of your dog and then back again, fine for all the other puppies. But I've already taught this to Hetty and I can walk round her in either the sit or the down. I did this a couple of times while the others were working, but nobody praised her for being so good, or suggested something else more interesting that we could work on or anything.

So I'm looking for a club preferably between Bury & Stowmarket that does some obedience and some Good Citizen type things - send to bed, interrupted recalls, Gold level stuff for Ellie, and also Bronze for Hetty. Does anyone know of one? There is one in Stonham Barns but it's awfully expensive. I am tempted to try to start a club, but I don't think I know enough for a full scale pet obedience weekly club with 3 or 4 levels from puppy to advanced, certainly I don't know enough about training different breeds so I'd need to find a trainer, and I know there's loads to organise regarding venues / insurance etc. So that's probably a non-starter.

My other related query is about starting a monthly club in our area just for Rally Obedience, which some of my fellows from the Great Barton lot were interested in, but the trainers are too traditional to want to do. Holbrook does this, but again it's a long drive. I would feel able to teach the level 1 signs for sure, assuming I said only dogs with Bronze Good Citizen could come so they had the basics. But again I know I will need to investigate venues and insurance etc, and I have no idea how to even start this!

Have you thought about agility training? If I remember rightly your pup is very young and couldn't do full training - it would be poles on the ground, no weaves etc - but there are many areas of the training that she could do. It is fun and you don't have to compete if you don't want to. That was my initial idea - to do some fun training and learn something new with my dog and absolutely no intention of ever stepping foot inside a ring, but I got bitten by the bug :-)

I am not usually comfortable with being "noticed" and the thought of going into a ring and performing in front of others - just you and your dog in there :-O - filled me with horror. I eventually entered a show, just 2 classes, mainly to stop other club members keep asking me when I was going to do a show and because I saw a wonderful black labrador who had the most amazing fun in the ring at a show I went to watch. He did the first four jumps and then at the tunnel he ignored it altogether but picked up the jump number and ran round and round the ring with it in his mouth having a brilliant time. It made me realise that it didn't matter if it all went wrong and so I entered my first show - two eliminations for taking the wrong course but my dog had great fun. I was a bundle of nerves and felt physically sick - but I entered more shows and now thoroughly enjoy my days out at shows and really look forward to the three training sessions I now do each week. I run a Golden Retriever so not the most obvious of agility breeds and we will never be up there with the top runners but we both have fun and that's what it is all about.

Even if you never enter a show learning all the commands needed will extend your dog's training and help foster the bond you have with your dog. A rock steady wait command, left and right, steady etc can all be learnt as a pup as can contacts - my club back teaches the contacts and the pups don't go over the equipment at all but are taught a stop at the end of the contact equipment and the pups all have brilliant contacts when they are old enough to start using the equipment.

I used to do agility with my Yankee when he was younger and I've done fun agility with the puppy's mum, so yes I'll probably do a bit for fun with Hetty too. But it's not my main interest, I'm too lazy for all that running around at speed. Rally suits me nicely, as does the pet exercises for the Good Citizen tests. I do formal obedience with Ellie too and she does pretty well against other toy breeds when we go to the limited shows, but we haven't got the precision required for all breed shows really.