Dutch Shepherd Forum

I was wondering if anyone here has had experience with the Dog Scouts of America? I just heard about it the other day and did a bit of reading, it looks like a cute little program. I saw that some of the merit badges dogs can earn include obedience, agility, herding, search and rescue, and many more activities that people on this forum already participate in. I'm thinking of signing up, I'm sure Zodiac will love having a new vest to wear

There is a troup in my area. I was a member for a year, but I didn't have time to participate as much as I would have liked. Their weekend hikes started at 7 am, and that's just not part of my schedule. Though I did learn a lot about little unknown hiking trails in my area. I heard they have a really nice "camp" every year in Texas(?).

The driving force of our group has dogs with tons of batches. Her main dog is a Malinois named Dazzle.
http://www.dogscouttroop107.com/Home_Page.html
http://doggonehappy.blogspot.com/

I had some exposure to it up in Michigan and really liked the concept. Everyone is very nice and motivational and you are encouraged to expand your training into a TON of different venues. Since everyone is working for the merit badges, there is no need for perfection. Everyone is just working together to learn new skill sets. I wish we had something more like it around here for people to participate in.

I'm glad to hear that people have had good experiences with it, I think the merit badge idea is cute and it would be fun to work on some different activities with Zodiac. The nearest troop to me is 2 hours away though so I'm not sure how many of the group activities we would really do, but from what I've read you can record videos demonstrating your dog's skills to earn the badges so that's pretty neat.

Looks really cool. The meeting location was over an hour away though....guess I won't be doing it!

From what I read it sounds like you don't have to go to the meetings if there aren't any close to you, you just record a video of your dog fulfilling the requirements for the badges.

Might be something to think about then! I didn't see that part. Of course I also just looked at the links Carole posted. She must be fairly close to me.