Paws for Tails a Waggin'

Newsletter of the Dog Obedience Club of Las Cruces, Inc.

Nancy Chanover, Editor
4210 Sotol Drive, Las Cruces, NM 88011
(505) 522-0812
chanover@zianet.com
DOCLC Club Phone Number: 527-3983

April 2005

The next meeting of the Dog Obedience Club of Las Cruces will be a restaurant meeting. We will meet on Thursday, April 7, 2005, at 6:30 pm at the Bountiful Bakery on East Lohman (at the east end of the Petco/Marshall's/Ross shopping center). The restaurant serves sandwiches, salads, soups, some light dinner fare, and exotic pastries and coffees, and we will have a private meeting room. For those of you planning to skip the food, please join us at 7 pm since we need to leave the restaurant by 9 pm at the latest. Hope to see you there!

We will be holding registration for our next set of obedience and agility classes this week. It will take place at the Branigan Library; 6:15 pm for returning students and 7 pm for new students. We would appreciate any current or prospective members who can come and help out! Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Classes are coming to end and the new ones will be starting shortly. I want to thank Janet for hosting us and providing us with a wonderful dinner. We had a great time and got updated with our new obedience class curriculum. The new classes are very similar to what we do now with just a few changes that will be easily made. I would like to have a trainer/assistant meeting in the near future (perhaps a lunch?) to cover the classes and go over what we talked about at Janet's for those who couldn't make it. Please remember that we need all the help we can get with teaching classes and would love to have anyone that wishes to assist with any level of class.

We also had a very nice farewell lunch for Cheryl Smith, who is moving to the hill country of Texas, and we wish her the very best.

It is so nice to see so many new faces at the meetings! I encourage you all to come forward with any ideas you may have for the club or activities you would like to participate in.

Vic

MINUTES OF THE DOG OBEDIENCE CLUB OF LAS CRUCES

March 3, 2005

Members Present: President Vic Villalobos, Vice-President Nancy Chanover, Secretary Marjorie A. Henson, Treasurer Charlene Curry; OTHER MEMBERS: Gene Forsythe, Julie Goodrich, Janet Miller, Shannon Murray, Brian Owen, Pam Smith, Kay Barr Suri, Gayle Treakle; VISITORS: Janina Carlona, Howard Davis, Federica Lanza, Benjamin Parker, Kathy Stevens, Nick Voges, Jennifer Yara, Linda Wilson

The meeting was called to order by President Vic Villalobos at 7:05. Introductions were made.

Janet Miller moved & Brian Owen seconded to accept the minutes as presented in the newsletter. Motion passed.

The treasurer's report was made.

Business cards are available from Charlene Curry. It was suggested that anybody taking any cards add the website (www.zianet.com/dogobedience) to the cards by anyone giving them out.

Kay Suri was introduced as a new member & was thanked for helping in the puppy class. The classes are doing fine. Julie Goodrich thanked the other assistants. Linda Wilson made a presentation about Safe Haven.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:
CURRICULUM: The obedience curriculum has been changed. The goal is to start the new curriculum in April. There will be a meeting at Janet Miller's in Alamogordo on March 21 at 6:30 to go over the new stuff & how we can adapt it to our lessons. Vic can take riders. We will hold off the change in the curriculum if we think it can't be implemented by the start of the April classes. We should think about raising our prices. Kay Suri moved & Gene Forsythe seconded to raise the price of classes to $60. Motion passed. It was suggested that the price of leads be raised to $10 no matter what size and collars to $5.00 no matter what size. Charlene Curry moved & Pam Smith seconded to approve the recommendation. Motion passed.

SEMINAR: Janet Miller reported that because of AKC regulation on use of agility equipment before seminars the date of the seminar had to be changed. It was changed to January 14 & 15. The criteria for participating in the seminar need to be changed. There was only one club member participating. Bud Houston is flexible about auditing & auditors. The reason for requiring open titles for participating dogs was so we wouldn't be waiting on people doing training hard stuff (weave poles) that the dog doesnŐt know. Janet will do advertising, keep the catering. We would have more people participating if we offer Novice stuff. It was suggested that we offer Handler movement for Novice mainly and Working at a distance. Janet is looking into having Jean Donaldson come in the summer of 2007 for a behavior seminar. She wrote The Culture Clash & Dogs are from Neptune. She charges $3000/day; the 2-day seminar would be at the Hilton & would cost $150/person for the 2-day seminar. Club members would pay the cost of the food. Janet will work to get continuing education credits for the vets. Brian Owen moved & Gene Forsythe seconded to have Janet continue to look into having this seminar. Motion passed.

RETREAT: A retreat was held at Charlene Curry's. A lot of things were talked about. One of the bigger topics was a training facility for Agility. Possibilities were presented. The club can't afford to buy our own land, so we're hoping to partner with someone that has land & maintain land & facilities. Both Safe Haven & the Humane Society are possibilities to partner with us. Safe Haven is open to this possibility. They would like help in training their dogs. They have 24-hour security. We'd like to sell monthly memberships to people so they could train there. We'd pay for utilities, there is electricity at the corner of the area that would be available for us. It meets the criteria sizewise for agility training. They have parking for 12-15 vehicles. Won't know about how they should expand. We would have to sign a long-term lease with us (10 years) Agility only & training equipment would be set up. Each of our training classes could have a certain number of class slots set up for Safe Haven clients. The place would need to be leveled, fenced and grass planted. It is a 501(c)(3) corporation & we might be able to get matching grants for the improvements. Perhaps companies or individuals could do some of the work as a donation of labor.

We need to have increasing flyer visibility.

The instructor program needs to bring in more instructors or a way to encourage the instructors to teach more classes, if we wanted to pay a token fee as compensation for the instructor's time. This would be as a means to have more people be instructors. Does the liability insurance allow our instructors to be paid? Charlene Curry will check. We need to bring in beginning instructors so we should be putting in a training program with some sort of criteria & have to have certification of the instructors. Our yellow pages ad could then include information on instructing opportunity.

Humane Society: Charlene Curry reports that the Humane Society will be having a once a month Yappy Hour from 5-7 at Way Out West starting April 5 - October with dogs welcome.

REGISTRATION: Registration for April classes is March 31 at Branigan. Everyone who can help is welcome to come. Sign up for returning students 6:15-7:00, new students at 7:00.

Everyone needs to update their attendance records.

Brags were presented.

Nancy Chanover moved & Brian Owen seconded that the meeting be adjourned. The meeting was adjourned at 8:25.

The Australian Cattle Dog Club of New Mexico is presenting a one-day tracking seminar on April 9. The seminar will be given by Melissa Thomas and Sharon Jolly of El Paso, and it will take place in Deming. Let Nancy or Lisa know if you would like a hard copy of the flyer, or you can access the PDF file here; entries close on April 6.