Canine Good Citizen

Canine Good Citizen is a 10-skill test that teaches good manners to dogs and responsible dog ownership to their owners.

CGC is open to all dogs–purebred and mixed breed. There are no age minimums or limits for participating in the Canine Good Citizen program.

The AKC Canine Good Citizen™ (CGC) program provides a perfect framework for training your Dandie to become a polite member of society. Based on you and your dog’s training needs, you have multiple options to get started.

You can teach your Dandie the 10 CGC skills yourself, work with a CGC trainer or attend a CGC training class where the test is given at the end of graduation.

The CGC evaluation is based on a skill test that focuses on good manners. If your Dandie has participated in a Meet the Breeds event, shown in conformation, participated in any performance sport or is generally an affable sort, it is quite likely you will be able to successfully obtain a CGC title. The ten skills are:

1. Accepting a friendly stranger. If your dog is able to be examined by a judge, chances are good your dog would pass this skill.
2. Sitting politely for petting. A self-explanatory skill, this is relaxed dog that can be polite and receive pets. It is not a precise obedience sit.
3. Appearance and grooming. If your dog is clean, can be brushed out and allows a brief go over, then you have this skill
4. Walking on loose lead. If you can walk your dog and not be dragged or need a prong collar with the grip of death, you probably have this one in the bag.
5. Walking through a crowd. Ever walked through the ring area to get to your class? Yep you probably have this skill down pat.
6. Sit and down on command. This is not obedience or rally level sit / down. This is a very relaxed basic sit and a down. Coaxing, cajoling and luring is allowed and pre-cision is not required on position.
7. Coming when called. Your dog will be on the end of a lead and you will walk a mere ten feet away and call your dog. If it comes to you, even if it sniffs or gazes at you a moment before doing so, you probably have this skill.
8. Reaction to another dog. If you can stand and speak with other competitors ringside, you have this skill set.
9. Reaction to a distraction. Imagine a cart goes by, someone drops a brush or opens a chair nearby and your dog notices but doesn’t lose its mind, you have this skill and probably didn’t even know it.
10. Supervised separation. This skill tests whether you can have someone else hold your dog while you step out of sight for three minutes. Your dog just has to remain calm and under control for the person holding him or her. The holder can pet the dog and it doesn’t need to sit or down stay; it just needs to not whine or bark or lunge after you, completely ignore the holder, etc. If you have had someone hold your dog while you ran back to your set up to grab a brush, shown another dog, or while you went to the restroom and he didn’t have an anxiety attack, then you probably have this skill down.

This is a relaxed, fun test that both show and pet Dandies with good temperaments will pass with flying colors. It is an official AKC title and can lead to more advanced good citizen or other testing.