Has anyone had any experience of these classes? I have been looking into them but was not sure if they would be good in conjunction with ringcraft classes or would you say not a good idea to do both? Our new pup is due to be born next week (:) :) :) ) so I know I am getting a bit ahead of myself but I would like to show her and want to go about it the right way. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Sharon

Hi Sharon, I know several show people who have taken their dogs through the Good Citizen scheme. There is nothing really in it which would conflict with your puppy's show career. So saying, I would not be in too much of a hurry to start. In any sort of training the object is to get the first small piece of training going first then gradually build other small pieces to it to form the whole. To dive straight in training lots of different things only leads to confusion for your puppy and makes the whole business of learning take that much longer.

Regards, John :)

I've done both with my Boxers.
My old veteran (RIP) had her Good Citizens Bronze, Silver and Gold.
She showed and had won many Best Veteran classes.
She was obedience trained as a pup, although not to competition level.
My Boxer bith 4yo. Has got Bronze and Silver awards, not obedience
trained as such, neglected as concentrated on showing. Paying the penalty now. A REAL HANDFUL. She's got the brains to do it so we are re-training at the obedience side slowly.
My pup now nearly 11 months old, does both obedience training and
ringcraft. Yes the only problem was the stand & sit training as I do use
bait for showring and titbits for training. But she's fine now, just a few training tweaks. She almost passed Bronze GC test but failed on the
sit/down stay of 1 minute (she stayed for 40 secs). Her confidence has taken a bashing after artillery fire at a local MayFayre. So any loud noises she wants to be with me. Still with time I'm sure she'll make it :)
The only thing I do is use a different lead & collar for the training at
obedience. (normal webbing collar and lead) Show ring she has a choke chain and different colour lead. The two that I did do both, enjoy using the brains and it's a valuable socialising place at a good training class.
Hope you have lots of fun.
Kind Regards
Kirstine

Hi,
My aussie puppy has done the Bronze and Silver Good Citizen Tests, one at 6 months and one at 8 months. I must admit I have trained her from bringing her home but have also payed the price as a couple of times she has become ''flat and bored'' with training as we were out training 3 nights out of 7. I have just been training her at home at the minute and am keeping everything lighthearted and fun. We also attend ringcraft once a week and she enjoys socializing with the other dogs and has no problem learning different commands for different training. The trick I have found is not to overload your puppy with commands of what you want it to do as like mine it will become confused and not know what is expected of it. Having always had older dogs before, having a puppy has been a real learning curve for me, I completely forgot that it needed to learn everything from scratch!!!
Have lots of fun whilst training,
Gabrielle