Obedience

Obedience is a sport of finesse, accuracy, and precision. Many GCOC members compete in AKC, UKC, and other obedience trials with their dogs. Training for and handling your dog in an obedience trial is a very rewarding and enjoyable experience for both you and your dog. You will make many friends who will be there to encourage you along the way.

Jake and Susan

Obedience trials test the level of training achieved by the dog and handler team. Each team performs a series of exercises that are scored by a judge. The team receives a qualifying/non-qualifying (pass/fail) score and the four teams with the highest qualifying scores in each class receive placement ribbons. Obedience trials are divided into several levels according to the experience of the dog or handler or both. The difficulty of the exercises increases with each level and ranges from basic commands such as sit, stand, come, heel, to retreiving over jumps, scent discrimination, directed retreiving and responding to hand signals only.  Dogs earn titles in each level before moving on to the next level of difficulty.  There is also the Obedience Trial Champion (OTCH) title which is often referred to as the PhD for dogs.