Leslie Plum
I've enrolled two dogs in classes at SDTC, one went through beginning and advanced home companion classes, the second went through beginning and 2 rounds of advanced classes. The price is great for 8 weeks of training, and I've recommended the club to many people, but I've become very discouraged after taking my dog through the Canine Good Citizen test for the third time. My dog may need some work when it comes to being play reactive around other dogs, but being told that my dog had a tight leash by someone who wasn't actually at those stations was disappointing when I was not given any guidelines to what qualified as a "loose leash" each time. I get nervous and hold the leash too tight, not any fault of my dog, and made a conscious effort to correct that. At the end of the most recent test one of the volunteers let their dog out of a kennel and it ran straight to my dog and though my dog didn't react at all it's not part of the test so my dog just got more stressed after being at the club for an hour and going through the the entire test. There was also a dog that belonged to one of the volunteers that was in a kennel being vocal through the whole test. Some of the volunteer trainers seem to actually care and offered helpful advice throughout classes, others were very dismissive and rude at times. The CGC test is very inconsistent because of the several volunteers that take turns at each station for every test. The classes might work well for some dogs, but 12 dogs in each session stressed my dog out more and more. I wanted to appreciate this club for being AKC certified, being run by volunteers and having a very reasonable price compared to other facilities, but in the end it just wasn't worth it.
