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After mulling over the camp offerings on Sunday evening, we decided to enroll in four activities: Herding, Interpreting Your Dog’s Body Language, Loose Leash Walking, and Really Reliable Recall. Later in the week we added the Tricks class and a lecture on the herding whistle. Following the early 5 pm Sunday dinner, everyone had a chance to meet the instructors to ask questions about the classes and activities.
The comprehensive schedule of classes and activities included Agility, Tracking, Obedience, Heelwork, Preparation for the CGC test, Freestyle Dancing, Treibball, Herding, Frisbee, Tricks, Retrieval, Dog Body Language, Scenting and Retrieving, Conformation Handling, Dock Diving, Puppy Training, Swimming, Loose Leash Walking, Doggy Square Dancing, Really Reliable Recall, Lure Coursing, Drill Team and Therapy Exam preparation. There also were daily organized walks.
There were also a variety of lectures such as Dog Behavior, Dog Science News, Herding Whistle, Biology of Dog Sports and Dog Health.
There was an excellent camp store that offered additional training treats, T-shirts, toys, sweat shirts, hats, leashes and other dog related products and camp souvenirs. The college campus store was also open part of the week. Additionally there were several days in which additional vendors offered dog related products outside of the dining hall. We purchased a leash made of deerskin from one vendor.
The camp also provided a “Dog Den” where campers could put there crates and dogs when they needed to. The camp photographer, Steve Surfman, had a room where campers could view the photos of their dogs taken during different activities. We bought the run that Steve took of Susie on her second day herding.
The relationship of Camp Gone to the Dogs with Marlboro College is excellent and apparently will continue for some time into the future. The facilities there are excellent. The camp staff did a great job of putting up signs and distributing maps to make it easy to find your way around camp and the college. Hats off to Jeanne and the other staff members and organizers for a job well done.
More details of the classes that Susie participated in will be given in a separate article.
July 2, 2023
