CGC Courses – “Canine Good Citizen”

The Canine Good Citizen course, known as CGC Training, teaches life skills. This training is the last step of regular training courses, but the first or introductory course to prepare your dog for a Trick Class or Therapy Dog training.

The course starts with the “Responsible Dog Ownership pledge”, a promise to provide for your dog’s safety, health and quality of life, while your dog must pass a 10-skill test that focuses on obedience, manners, confidence and social skills. The skills are the following:

• Allowing a friendly stranger to approach
• Sitting politely for petting
• Accepting grooming/examination from somebody other than the owner
• Walking on a loose leash
• Walking politely and under control through a crowd
• Sitting and lying down on cue and staying in place
• Coming when called
• Reacting politely to another dog
• Reacting calmly to a distraction such as a dropped chair
• Reacting calmly to supervised separation from the owner

These skills will help your canine companion be less stressed and experience less anxiety from routine tasks like nail trimming or tick removal, etc. This will also help the owner, groomers and veterinarians do their job more successfully.