What was Cocoa up to this sum­mer? Work­ing hard on get­ting another set of acronyms, her CGC – Canine Good Cit­i­zen cer­tifi­cate. All her hard work paid off last month when she took, and passed, all 10 items on the CGC test. With NO do-overs! (Each item is allowed two tries.) Hur­rah for Cocoa!

It’s inter­est­ing that each dog in the class had com­pletely dif­fer­ent weak spots and strengths. Cocoa learned to Sit, Stay (which she kinda knew) and Down (which she will do, but with a con­fused look as if to say, “You want me closer to the ground than I already am?!”). All this at the young age of seven, prov­ing that a not-so-old dog CAN learn new tricks. The other exer­cises: heel­ing, com­ing when called, meet­ing a stranger, walk­ing through a crowd, with those she was a pro thanks to her show training.

Cocoa really enjoyed the whole expe­ri­ence and it was fun work­ing on the com­mands with her. It may have been the dog days of sum­mer, but in a very good way.

Learn more about CGC train­ing and test­ing here.

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