Love, Honor & Obey: ‘Gifted’ dogs receive special training, treatment

Tuesday, April 29, 2003 | 8:13 a.m.

It was a dark and stormy night, to quote a certain gifted beagle.

Wind rattled the training tent. Raindrops pelted it.

Tongues bounced in complacent pants. Shaggy heads looked on with indifference. Dogs glanced at other dogs. Some gazed anxiously into their owners' eyes.

Despite inclement weather, there were turns to practice, forward advances to perfect, body language to understand. And always, there was the abrupt halt to obey. "If anybody's bothered by the building flapping, stay closer to them than you'd normally do," dog trainer Kim Kilmer-Ford said to the teams encircling her.

But nobody seemed to mind. Distractions were rare. This was a pre-novice obedience class.

And so it continued at Paws 'N Claws Canine Sports Training Center in Henderson. A few tail-wagging mishaps aside, dogs (and owners) were synchronized and obedient. Behavior was nearly impeccable.

Some teams were working to someday compete in American Kennel Club trials. Others wanted merely to expand their dogs' horizons.

For the latter, the message was clear: It's one thing to teach your dog to "sit" and "stay"; it's another to have him abruptly halt and lay down, track your scent through a trail or run an obstacle course at top speed.

Forget the shows and possible titles that lay ahead for an obedient and gifted dog. For some, it's about proper manners and mental and physical stimulation.

"They like what it's doing for them," Cathy Peterson said, referring to Rusty and Maynerd, a lab/Britanny and a Labrador/golden retriever. "It's 'I can do it better, I can do it quicker if you just give me a chance.'"

Looking at devoted Rusty gazing up at her, Peterson added, "His motto is, 'Just send me in.'"

Peterson doesn't have a lifelong history in training. Her routine began only three years ago.

"My kids wanted dogs," Peterson said. "At that point I was baby-sitting and had five children of my own. Whatever dog we got, it had to be well behaved, and I had to be able to trust it."

After buying Rusty, whose litter was advertised in the paper, she took him to PetsMart, where together they learned the basic commands.

"Then I thought, 'OK, now what?' I enjoyed it and we thought, 'Surely there's something else we can do.' "

Soon they ascended the obedience ladder. Maynerd studies obedience. Rusty studies obedience and agility -- a performance sport based on an obstacle course program of seesaws, tunnels, tire jumps, bar jumps and weave poles. Now, Peterson said, "I can take them to Thanksgiving dinner at my cabin where there are 32 people and put them in a down stay or a sit stay or ask them to do something ... We can walk in the woods and I can call them back after they've chased a rabbit."

Needing a job

Barbara Hodson raises her right arm and her golden retriever, Reno, abruptly halts and lays down, his belly hugging the ground, his front legs before him. Hodson sweeps her left hand forward at her side and the dog sits.

"Those are the skills you teach at the utility level of obedience," Kilmer-Ford, Hodson and Reno's trainer, said. "That's the most advanced level."

With 17 years of experience and more than 22 AKC performance titles, Kilmer-Ford, owner of Fairwayfox Dog Training, trains all breeds. Classes range from puppy kindergarten to competition obedience classes to advanced agility.

Programs are tailored to dogs' needs and traits. Dogs vary from breed to breed. For example, herding and retrieving are instinctive in some dogs, Kilmer-Ford said, looking down at Bug, her Pembroke Welsh corgi that moments before was herding a golden retriever six times its size.

"Each specific dog was bred to do something," Kilmer-Ford said.

But, she said, for any breed dog, advanced training helps establish proper behavior and builds the owner/dog relationship.

"There are dogs out there who need to have something to do or they will find things to do on their own -- chew the couch, whittle your landscape, bark all day long, jump fences. Dogs need mental and physical activity ... They need a job."

Fergus, for example, is a Jack Russell terrier that attends pre-novice obedience class so his owner can better learn to work with him.

"They're very hyper (dogs)," Kilmer-Ford said. "They're bred to go down into the ground and kill vermin. They're very tenacious and very active. They're hard to live with."

Though Fergus will likely never compete, others will, even though their owners began classes simply because they wanted a well-behaved dog.

"Everybody starts out that way," Kilmer-Ford said. "They literally get bitten by the bug. That's how I started. I got a dog, I wanted it to have some manners, and it exploded from there."

Dogs and owners can also achieve the AKC's Canine Good Citizens certificate, a program focused solely on behavior that promotes responsible dog ownership. According to Mary Burch, AKC Canine Good Citizen director, 500,000 dogs have been certified since the program began in 1989.

For Hodson, training began with books. Classes followed. She considers herself a rookie competitor. She's received two AKC Companion Dog titles and one AKC Companion Dog Excellence title.

"I started getting more and more interested," Hodson said. "As you go to these classes, the trainer says, 'Oh your dog looks like he may have something.' It just pushes you to go further and you kind of get into it. It doesn't take that much time, it just takes consistency. And there's a ton of options for people."

But in training she keeps an open mind.

"If he sits a quarter inch off his sit, I think it's cute," Hodson said with a smile.

Agility trial

At Vegas Valley Dog Obedience Club, an AKC-licensed obedience club, most students attend classes to improve behavior as a personal benefit rather than to compete, club President Ginger Austin said.

"You can pick up on each others' ideas and feelings," Austin said, referring to life with a trained dog. "The dog knows it's expected to behave. It's a whole different world. It's totally fascinating what you can teach your dog."

A popular question in some of her classes, Austin said, is whether exercises learned in obedience classes will help with agility.

Agility, the hot new performance event and spectator sport, was first presented in the late 1970s at a Crufts Dog Show to entertain guests between competitions.

Any trained dog can participate. Owners, who run the course alongside their dogs (shouting instructions), are also included.

"Agility has just boomed," said Terri Bounty, owner of Paws 'N Claws, who began agility with her dogs six years ago.

'It's the fastest-growing dog sport. It's more than taking them out and throwing a ball with them. It's a real nice bonding experience ... Most of our dogs now are apartment dogs. Both parents work.

"They're latchkey children and they are part of they family and they (owners) feel guilty leaving them home."

Competitively, agility ranks above flyball, obedience and tracking, said Steve Herwig, agility trials secretary for a handful of dog clubs.

"It's the largest introduction of new people to performance events," Herwig said."It's most popular because it's one of the simpler thing to teach. It's well rounded. Any size dog can do it. And you move into competition because there's no reason not to."

Growth spurt

The United States Dog Agility Association in Garland, Texas, has more than 300 sanctioned events and 23,000 dogs registered internationally. Unlike the American Kennel Association, mixed breeds can be registered.

"We've experienced 30- to 40-percent growth each year," association spokeswoman Heather Smith said. "We register 50 to 75 dogs a week."

But with agility, participation isn't limited to competition.

"You can just enjoy the class atmosphere," Smith said. "The dogs love it. It's like their little playground. We have construction plans for sale. Courses can be made relatively simply and inexpensively.

"The first place to start is obedience. First develop a working relationship with your dog. The dogs have to learn to trust you. You're asking the dog to walk across a plank ... You have to use common sense."

Michelle Wendell, a local veterinarian whose dogs, Noel and Ben (German shepherd and Jack Russell Terrier), are learning the courses, said that agility is a way to treat her dogs to something special.

"I thought I wanted to do it competitively," Wendell said. "Now I just enjoy doing it more for fun. This is their jump-jump class."

Referring to Noel, her shepherd bred to herd sheep, "She just lives to go do things. This is kind of the big night out."

Many of her clients ask her about the sport, Wendell said.

"They see it on 'Animal Planet.' Also, I recommend it to a lot of my clients."

Unlike other students, Wendell said she doesn't yet have a backyard playground.

But she's working on it.

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