Loren and I got my training at a wonderful place called Ruff House. Crystal and Ariel were my great teachers and they helped me so much. I think (I hope) I might even have surprised them at how far I came from being a wild beast to becoming such a civilized dog. The website for Ruff House is ruffhouse.biz
For the first 10 hours of training, Ariel came to our house. That was because I was so fierce and reactive that I couldn’t be in a classroom with other dogs. After that, I took my first class. I will never forget (and I know that Loren won’t either) that during my first hour-long obedience class, I barked at the other people and dogs for a solid 45 minutes! But then, the next week, and each week after that, I barked a little less and a little less, until I was totally cool for school!
I guess that’s what learning is: it doesn’t happen all at once but if you keep taking little steps, after a while, you find out you’ve gone really far!
These were the classes I did at Ruff House: Basic Obedience 1, Basic Obedience 2, Loose-Leash Walking, Fungility (getting ready for Agility), Novice Agility, Urban Agility, and Intermediate Tricks.
Loren and I were certified to be a Therapy Dog team with a national organization called Alliance of Therapy Dogs. They are based in Wyoming and have testing people all around the country. One of them gave Loren and me the test and then did four observations of us visiting with people in different places to make sure we could both behave properly and follow all the rules. I learned that there need to be good guidelines because we’re walking into hospitals, clinics, social services agencies, senior care homes, and lots of other kinds of places where we are the guests of the people whose places they are.
The website for the Alliance of Therapy Dogs is really simple. It’s therapydogs.com