Canine good citizen (called CGC for short) is a certification from the American kennel club that is officially recognized by many organizations as a way to know for sure that a dog knows how to behave in public.
Your dog having a CGC certification not only tells others that your dog knows how to behave, but also can lead to some reduced rent costs for certain renters and is the first step in becoming a therapy dog.
For a dog to become CGC certified, they have to pass the 10 tests that every good canine citizen should know and take one final test where they go through all 10 one after another. The 10 tests are as follows:
- Accepting a friendly stranger
- Sitting politely while being pet
- Being ok with being groomed
- Walking on a lose leash
- Walking through a crowd
- Knowing and preforming sit, down, and stay on command
- Coming when called
- Greeting another friendly dog
- Ignoring distractions (smell and sound)
- supervised separation (letting someone else watch the dog for 3 minutes)
We teach all 10 of those to all the dogs that come through as well as some other lesson like how to teach your dog new behaviors and reading your dogs body language so you and your four legged friend can better understand each other.