# Newbie Questions, Junior Handling



## chelseah (Dec 8, 2020)

Hi! My puppy, Hallie, will be 13 weeks on Wednesday. I was searching my area for obedience classes/group training to start soon, and maybe fun agility and swim opportunities for her after that. I found a place that seemed to have a lot of good classes. I asked about my nine-year-old participating because she wants to be involved in training our puppy, and they told me about their junior handler program. I looked up a few short junior handling videos for her to watch with me on YouTube, and she was really excited about it. Can anyone point me to a good source to start learning about this before classes start?


----------



## CAROLINA MOM (May 12, 2009)

Bumping up


----------



## FinnTheFloof (Jun 27, 2021)

chelseah said:


> Hi! My puppy, Hallie, will be 13 weeks on Wednesday. I was searching my area for obedience classes/group training to start soon, and maybe fun agility and swim opportunities for her after that. I found a place that seemed to have a lot of good classes. I asked about my nine-year-old participating because she wants to be involved in training our puppy, and they told me about their junior handler program. I looked up a few short junior handling videos for her to watch with me on YouTube, and she was really excited about it. Can anyone point me to a good source to start learning about this before classes start?


Junior handling is fabulous!! I am in junior handling and I love love love it. I don't compete in junior showmanship with my own dog, but I co own a corgi to show in juniors and I am training my dog for rally, scent work, and obedience. 

Are you interested in Junior Showmanship, or just having a junior handling a dog in general?


----------



## FinnTheFloof (Jun 27, 2021)

If she's interested in Junior Showmanship, I will be showing next weekend. If you happen to be near the shows and you want to watch the Junior Showmanship (I did this before I started), I'd be happy to PM you the shows to see if you're near them.

Especially because she's younger, make sure you set a good foundation with your puppy. Socialize her PROPERLY while you still have the chance- I made this mistake myself, and now I can't go to classes because my dog gets over aroused around other dogs and can't focus on me. An over excited or fearful dog that will soon be 50+ pounds and a 9 year old is not a good combination. This is an article that I love that will help you form a solid foundation for her to work with. Otherwise, it just depends on where she wants to compete. I can point you towards resources for individual sports that are more kid friendly, but most of them are different so it depends on what you want to do. 
Some sports that are more kid friendly:

Junior Showmanship
Rally 
Scent work/Nose Work
Trick dog 
Therapy Dog work
the CGC program- not technically a sport, but it feels good! to title your dog and this will help with everyday life skills as well. 
obedience (at the lower levels- maybe for when she's older)
dock diving- doesn't require much training, if any
fast cat- ditto
Barn hunt
Fun, but impossible to find info on:
treibball


----------



## chelseah (Dec 8, 2020)

FinnTheFloof said:


> If she's interested in Junior Showmanship, I will be showing next weekend. If you happen to be near the shows and you want to watch the Junior Showmanship (I did this before I started), I'd be happy to PM you the shows to see if you're near them.
> 
> Especially because she's younger, make sure you set a good foundation with your puppy. Socialize her PROPERLY while you still have the chance- I made this mistake myself, and now I can't go to classes because my dog gets over aroused around other dogs and can't focus on me. An over excited or fearful dog that will soon be 50+ pounds and a 9 year old is not a good combination. This is an article that I love that will help you form a solid foundation for her to work with. Otherwise, it just depends on where she wants to compete. I can point you towards resources for individual sports that are more kid friendly, but most of them are different so it depends on what you want to do.
> Some sports that are more kid friendly:
> ...


First, thank you so much for taking the time to give me all that information! I’m not sure yet if showmanship is what she will do, the video I showed her was agility. I will go through with her and we can watch videos and learn about each event to see what she’s most interested in. I read through the link you shared to canine chasm, and I can see that I am babying my puppy at times. This is the first dog I’ve ever really trained. I definitely agree that an untrained retriever and my nine year old would not be a good combination, and I am planning to also take her to training classes myself to make sure I am doing the right things.

Thanks for the list of the different dog sports and events. I will find videos and try to get a feel of what she’s interested in that may work well for us. 
We are in Texas, and this is the place I found for classes that I thought looked good:


Agility


They mention a lot of what you listed on the site, including treibball and CGC.


----------



## pawsnpaca (Nov 11, 2014)

I have found that kids can be AWESOME handlers in agility! Most are naturally athletic and learn the various handling techniques quickly, and can run a lot faster than most of us (a lot of the adult handlers are in the 50-70 year old range where the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...  ).

Your puppy won't be old enough to really start training for agility competition until she's around a year old. That gives your daughter a lot of time to work her in things like manners, CGC, or one of the other sports and establish a rapport with your dog while learning basic training skills. However, if agility really lights her fire, it may be worth talking to the agility instructor and seeing if s/he knows of someone who might appreciate having a junior learn to handle their dogs. I have several friends who love agility and want their dog to compete, but their own physical limitations are holding back the team... several of them have pulled in younger handlers to help train and eventually compete with their dogs. If nothing else, the instructor might be willing to allow your daughter to "audit" the beginner classes to start seeing how certain skills are trained and how certain handling techniques are accomplished.


----------



## FinnTheFloof (Jun 27, 2021)

chelseah said:


> First, thank you so much for taking the time to give me all that information!


Of course! 


chelseah said:


> I’m not sure yet if showmanship is what she will do, the video I showed her was agility. I will go through with her and we can watch videos and learn about each event to see what she’s most interested in.


Definitely go through to see what looks interesting to her! Showmanship is definitely my favorite- it's what clicked well for me. Find videos of lots of things and see what catches her eye! I, and most of my junior friends, have all found one thing that immediately grabbed us, even though we're involved in multiple sports.
Also, try to see what your dog is most interested in! My dog, Finn, LOVES doing rally- he lives to please. He likes scent work, but rally is his obvious favorite. If it turns out that your dog doesn't enjoy something as much, but your daughter does, you can probably find someone else with a dog that she can work with. However, training your own dog is always the most fun, and it's the most fun when the dog truly loves what's going on as well. Luckily, goldens love to do most anything! They're very versatile, but it depends on the dog. 


chelseah said:


> I read through the link you shared to canine chasm, and I can see that I am babying my puppy at times. This is the first dog I’ve ever really trained. I definitely agree that an untrained retriever and my nine year old would not be a good combination, and I am planning to also take her to training classes myself to make sure I am doing the right things.


Puppy classes are great! I love the canine chasm. One of our members here on GRC is behind it, and it's one of my favorite dog resources that I've found. Here's another one that isn't specifically focused on puppies, but touches on socialization (My fatal mistake 😆 ) in the section titled "All the right things''. I wish that I had read this when my boy was still young. Puppy classes are fabulous, and it looks like you've found a very good place for training. 


chelseah said:


> We are in Texas, and this is the place I found for classes that I thought looked good:
> 
> 
> Agility
> ...


Nowhere near the shows, then, unfortunately. That looks like an excellent place to train! 


pawsnpaca said:


> Your puppy won't be old enough to really start training for agility competition until she's around a year old.


This- agility as it looks in the videos won't be possible until much later to allow your dog's joints to develop properly. However, you've found a place that has several foundation classes that you can take, if your daughter is really passionate about agility. Just be aware that it won't look as cool as it does in the videos for a very long time, and there won't even be obstacles involved for a good while.


----------



## chelseah (Dec 8, 2020)

pawsnpaca said:


> I have found that kids can be AWESOME handlers in agility! Most are naturally athletic and learn the various handling techniques quickly, and can run a lot faster than most of us (a lot of the adult handlers are in the 50-70 year old range where the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...  ).
> 
> Your puppy won't be old enough to really start training for agility competition until she's around a year old. That gives your daughter a lot of time to work her in things like manners, CGC, or one of the other sports and establish a rapport with your dog while learning basic training skills. However, if agility really lights her fire, it may be worth talking to the agility instructor and seeing if s/he knows of someone who might appreciate having a junior learn to handle their dogs. I have several friends who love agility and want their dog to compete, but their own physical limitations are holding back the team... several of them have pulled in younger handlers to help train and eventually compete with their dogs. If nothing else, the instructor might be willing to allow your daughter to "audit" the beginner classes to start seeing how certain skills are trained and how certain handling techniques are accomplished.


Thanks for that information and encouragement! We brought Hallie home on limited registration/as a pet, but I want her to get enough real exercise that challenges her mentally too, and this seems like a fun way for us to do that with her. It does seem like it would be good for both of them to also have this time to practice training the manners/obedience as well. Is it usually an issue for Junior Handling if my daughter was doing the Junior Handling classes/ some events but then I also took her to more training classes?


----------



## FinnTheFloof (Jun 27, 2021)

chelseah said:


> Thanks for that information and encouragement! We brought Hallie home on limited registration/as a pet, but I want her to get enough real exercise that challenges her mentally too, and this seems like a fun way for us to do that with her. It does seem like it would be good for both of them to also have this time to practice training the manners/obedience as well. Is it usually an issue for Junior Handling if my daughter was doing the Junior Handling classes/ some events but then I also took her to more training classes?


Any dog, even on limited registration, can compete in an event (aside from regular showing). If I’m wrong about that, I’m in trouble! 
no, it wouldn’t be a problem.


----------

