# How far do you go?



## MonicaBH (Jul 5, 2008)

I'm wondering how far you all drive, or are willing to drive, to train your dog(s)?

Sadly, there are not many options for training in my area somehow. The closest training clubs are about 50 miles (one way) for OB, and for Rally and Acting/Tricks, I'm driving about 30 miles one way. Travel time is roughly an hour for both places. However, for OB, I am willing to make the drive. The training instructor is so incredibly nice and has trialled two of her dogs to OTCH and has been invited to NOI multiple times as well. She took time out of her day with her family to meet with Clyde & I and assess his progress. I believe she wants the best for her students. She has been nothing but helpful since I approached her. The other kennel club (which is the same distance, but going north instead of south) was less than helpful and their response email was actually a huge turnoff.

What about the rest of you? How far do you travel, and/or how far are you willing to travel? How would you base your decision?


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

There are people who teach puppy classes and obedience in my city, but I'm not fond of them. One of the two obedience guys is rough on dogs (lots of harsh leash corrections and the like) and the other is gentler but talks in class about how you shouldn't let your dog exit doors ahead of you, sit with his paw on your foot, butt you with his nose, etc., because he's trying to be the "pack leader." I can't stand in a class and listen to dominance crap, I just can't. The puppy class lady uses positive methods, but in the classes I attended she'd do things like tell me to literally drag fearful Casper around the room when he didn't want to walk past scary objects and she'd tap him on the nose and scold him when he growled out of fear (a couple of times she did this after he'd already stopped growling, too, which makes the correction even more useless), so I don't have much use for her, either.

There is a wonderful lady who teaches conformation handling classes and rally who lives about a 30-minute drive from my house. I've gone to a couple of handling classes and enjoyed them. I think I'm going to get Crystal into rally; this lady thinks we could be competition-ready pretty quickly because Crystal already knows most of the novice stuff. The lady just has to train me, pretty much.


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## Darkmoon (Mar 12, 2007)

Currently I'm not, my car is too bad. As soon as I get a new car, I'll be driving about an hour maybe hour and a half for training. There is a wonderful Schuthund club up there that has excellent obedience/agility/WP instructors that I would love to work with. I know many of the people involved in it, so hopefully I can start meeting with them.


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## LynnI (Mar 27, 2010)

I travel 1 1/2 hrs to 3 hrs for training, one way (depending on who I am training with and what we need at that time). I frimly believe that it is better to travel further less often for excellent instruction than to take more regular lessons with a less qualified trainer. In the end we progress faster and I get more for my money.


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## Finkie_Mom (Mar 2, 2010)

We are fortunate in that we only have to travel about 40 mins one way for training, once a week, or twice a week if we do conformation stuff. But I know that when we start trialing, we will most likely have to start traveling further... Probably the furthest I would go would be 4 hours. Then of course that will most likely change when I start showing, LOL.


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## Maliraptor (Mar 6, 2009)

Just got back from a 650m round trip visit to train. Went up Thursday night for club, stayed over night for Friday club, then drove home Saturday.
But over the years it has varied from 35m to 150m one way, two to three times a week.


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

I haven't had to drive very far yet, because we haven't joined any training classes, but there is a small dogs playgroup about a 10 minute drive from us. I would be willing to drive up to 30 minutes I guess, but I wouldn't do it to my dog because she is a shivering mess in the car.



> and the other is gentler but talks in class about how you shouldn't let your dog exit doors ahead of you, sit with his paw on your foot, butt you with his nose, etc., because he's trying to be the "pack leader."


Not to mention that he is wrong. Pawing and nuzzling are actually submissive/appeasing behaviours. My dog does it all the time, and she is certainly not dominant! She is bossy with other dogs, but submissive and lovely to all humans.

She used to exit in front of me, but lately she has actually been stopping and waiting for me to go in first. No idea why, but it's certainly nothing to do with dominance or who the pack leader is.


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

Here's the article I found when I Googled him. I've been slightly tempted to attend a class or two just to see if he's changed his methods at all in the past year or if that stupid list at the bottom of the article came from the reporter's "research" (the paper here is awful) and not directly from him. I can't stomach any dominance, alpha crap, though.


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## MrsBoats (May 20, 2010)

New England is fairly small and 2 hours will get me to VT. I am lucky that I have a good training place 3 miles from my house. But, I do travel often to other places so we don't get used to just one place. I drive 45 - 60 minutes away about 2 times a week for agility to three different places we rotate around on top of our weekly class at the home court place. Two weekends I ago I drove 2 hours for a private agility lesson (which was seriously well worth and I will be going back) and I've driven two hours for seminars. If they are good and I will get something out of the lesson or class...I will drive.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

Anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour each way. Depends on what I'm looking for. Now granted, one of the hour-drive classes was for an excellent puppy socialization class I wanted Mira to be in, and the other I managed to "bundle" all three dogs into back to back classes...Mira's was another socialization class and K/W were in classes of a higher level than is taught locally, and with instructors I knew to be excellent, so I was learning for three hours and the dogs for an hour each.


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## Tankstar (Dec 30, 2006)

I go about 45minsone way. For Agility training(when we do it, havnt for a bit now) Any where from 5mins to over a hour to agility meets/shows we do int he area. And for Rally (we justs igned up so havnt started) we will be driving about 30mins one way. Cant wait to start that.


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## Jacksons Mom (Mar 12, 2010)

I've never done a training class. We've trained on our own, however we are starting agility in October and that's only 25 minutes away. I don't think I'd go farther than 45 minutes. We have quite a few options in our area, I am lucky. I am in Annapolis, MD so we're real close to DC, Baltimore, etc.


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## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

MonicaBH said:


> What about the rest of you? How far do you travel, and/or how far are you willing to travel? How would you base your decision?


In the summer, Agility is held outdoors and is a whole 10 minutes from my house. Rally is in the training building, a 20-25 minute drive. Agility is held indoors in the winter. My other trainer is about 45 minutes away, but she comes to town to teach so I'm looking at a 20 minute drive, tops. 
I so wanted to get Auz into schutzhund. I think he would love it and it would be good for him, but the nearest club I can find is about 3 1/2 hours away. That would be 7 hours of driving, with an hour long class or so, would equal 8 hours. With owning my own business, I just cannot pick up and leave for 8 hours at a time, once a week. (If it was a one time deal, sure, but every week?) A lot of schH. clubs are on Saturday mornings, my busiest grooming day and our busiest kennel day. I wouldn't make a lot of friends if I left every Saturday from 6AM-2PM!


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## LynnI (Mar 27, 2010)

LazyGRanch713 said:


> In the summer, Agility is held outdoors and is a whole 10 minutes from my house. Rally is in the training building, a 20-25 minute drive. Agility is held indoors in the winter. My other trainer is about 45 minutes away, but she comes to town to teach so I'm looking at a 20 minute drive, tops.
> I so wanted to get Auz into schutzhund. I think he would love it and it would be good for him, but the nearest club I can find is about 3 1/2 hours away. That would be 7 hours of driving, with an hour long class or so, would equal 8 hours. With owning my own business, I just cannot pick up and leave for 8 hours at a time, once a week. (If it was a one time deal, sure, but every week?) A lot of schH. clubs are on Saturday mornings, my busiest grooming day and our busiest kennel day. I wouldn't make a lot of friends if I left every Saturday from 6AM-2PM!


Just a thought.... but what about inquiring to see if there are others in your area that would want to start a Sch. Club and bring an instructor to you? Or maybe you'll get lucky and there is someone qualified in your area that would be willing to teach.


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## nekomi (May 21, 2008)

For obedience training and general training classes, I drive about 45 minutes. 

To find trails to train on for mushing, I drive at least 30 minutes, but the best trails are all an hour's drive at least.


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## MusherChic (Nov 6, 2010)

I am very lucky and very grateful for where I live because for training my sled dogs in the fall I can run right from my kennel. In the winter I drive about 5 minutes to my "winter trails". I have no idea how far I am willing to drive and actually I can't drive yet, my mom does. That would depend on how competitive I want to be for that particular season of racing.


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## Squeeker (Dec 15, 2007)

We drive a little less than an hour one way for our weekly agility classes. 

We've driven almost two ours one way for ouur pointing dog club meetings/training sessions, and 4 hours one way for field tests.


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## Keechak (Aug 10, 2008)

for agility obedience I travel about 15 minutes, I do my tracking training within a 5 mile radius of home, and for Herding training I make several week long trips a year to Hawk's breeder's house 5 hours away and I stay wit her for the week.


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## kacaju (Jan 2, 2008)

I drive my daughter to 4-H weekly and that is a half hour each way. I also take her once a week for show handling and that is about 40 minutes one way. When I took our dog for obed/rally classes, my friends training classes are a good hour from me. I have no trouble driving that hour. I just do not have the time to do it right now. Someday I will get back...when I went I had a lot of fun


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## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

I currently drive 45 minutes twice a week to Appleton to train. Monday nights we have agility and Tuesdays we have Pre-Novice. I'm a little nervous about it, we still have 4 weeks left, and I'm pretty sure it will snow before then. I don't know if I'm going to be comfortable driving that far in weather. It's really worth the drive for agility, not only is the class really positive its also very clicker friendly and orientated. It's a ton of fun.


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