If you’re just joining us, catch up by reading Becoming a Therapy Dog - Part 1.  Back to our story…

As we patiently endeavored to wait a few more months to get started on our therapy dog journey, we stumbled upon the AKC’s Canine’s Good Citizen Program at the AKC’s annual Responsible Dog Ownership Day in Madison Square Park. (As a side note - Responsible Dog Ownership Day is an amazing event for dog owners in New York. The AKC has tables with information about almost every breed of dogs you can imagine - they also have Obedience/Agility/Rally/Performance demonstrations, contests, free samples from sponsors and much more. Mark your calendar…the 2008 RDOD will be help on September 20th!)

Back to Canine Good Citizen (CGC)…at Responsible Dog Ownership Day, we learned that the CGC Program is a certification program that is designed to reward dogs who have good manners at home and in the community. A dog can earn his certification by passing a 10-part test that requires the dog to demonstrate proper socialization and basic obedience.

For CGC, the owner must also sign the Responsible Dog Owners Pledge which states, “We believe that responsible dog ownership is a key part of the CGC concept and by signing the pledge, owners agree to take care of their dog’s health needs, safety, exercise, training and quality of life. Owners also agree to show responsibility by doing things such as cleaning up after their dogs in public places and never letting dogs infringe on the rights of others.”

We liked the idea of the pledge (we hate it when people don’t train their dog or don’t pick up their dog’s poop and give other dog owners a bad name) and we were anxious for Oscar to add another certificate to our fridge, so we took a look at what our little genius would have to do to earn his certification…

Test 1: Accepting a friendly stranger

Test 2: Sitting politely for petting

Test 3: Appearance and grooming

Test 4: Out for a walk (walking on a loose lead)

Test 5: Walking through a crowd

Test 6: Sit and down on command and Staying in place

Test 7: Coming when called

Test 8: Reaction to another dog

Test 9: Reaction to distraction

Test 10: Supervised separation

Hmmm…no problem on the socialization stuff - Oscar’s a lover, not a fighter. He was also pretty good at obedience by then, but we hadn’t completely weaned him off of “incentives” at that time and you’re not allowed to give treats during the test, so we weren’t 100% sure that he would be able to pull those off.

Finally, there was #10 - supervised separation…well that one was going to be a problem. Recently, Oscar had started to develop a little separation anxiety - specifically, when we were out on a family walk and one of us would try to leave (to go into a store, run an errand, etc.), Oscar would stand up, strain at the end of his leash and make this pitiful, frenzied yelping/crying noise. Well, 9 out of 10’s not bad, but unfortunately you needed to pass all 10 tests to earn your CGC certification.

We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would NOT be earning our CGC certification that day. But it was early in the day, the line was short and the test was free - so we decided to give it a shot anyway, it would be good practice to see if we could pass tests 1 through 9 and we’d work on the separation part for next time.

Tune in next time to find out how we did!!