Crocus Obedience and Kennel Club is an active, non-profit dog training club located South West of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. 

COKC holds classes for puppy socialization, basic manners, show handling, agility, flyball, obedience and rally-o. We also host a variety of events, both educational and competitive, such as our annual dog show in February. The membership is also involved in hosting an annual tournament in flyball racing and an agility trial.

In the fall of 2008 COKC adopted a balanced training method - “positive but not permissive” - based on operant conditioning. This method allows you to have control of your dog while maintaining trust. Without trust you cannot gain true respect.

“Positive” part: • When teaching a new behaviour we use positive reinforcement – that is rewarding correct behaviour and ignoring incorrect responses. • Create a desire for your dog to work with you. This is accomplished through relationship building play. Once the dog sees you as a source of fun, handler focus greatly improves.

“Not permissive” part: • Once the dog knows the behaviour we will give verbal feedback for incorrect responses if needed. • If your dog is doing something that is self-rewarding (i.e. barking, chewing, or staring at other animals) you need to interrupt that behaviour. This can be accomplished by giving verbal feedback, using body language, putting them in a crate or simply moving away from the stimulus. • Practicing “nothing for free” – your dog needs to earn his supper, walks or favourite toy by performing a behaviour such as sit first.

COKC has three main objectives with their training: 1. Obtaining Handler Focus Without focus learning is impossible. By playing games with our dogs we are teaching them that we are more exciting than everything else. Most of these focus games are stationary because movement can be very distracting. 2. Preventing Anxiety and Problem Behaviors We will work at preventing anxiety and problem behaviors by teaching bite inhibition, doing a lot of socialization to people and things, teaching the dog to make good choices through games like “It’s Yer Choice”, and teaching the dog to love his crate by playing “Crate Games”. 3. Gaining Control while Maintaining Trust We will help you teach your dog some basic obedience, using “positive but not permissive” methods.

 

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Last updated March 2009

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