# CGC Supervised Separation



## cjauch (Jul 2, 2009)

Trooper and I are working toward our CGC. We are taking a prep class and he seems to do very well with all the requirements EXCEPT the supervised separation. 

During classes our trainer will rotate taking a dog away for the separation portion. Trooper fails miserably each time. He stops dead in his tracks and does what I call his "turtle impression" and WILL NOT go with someone he doesn't know. I have read different things about how this portion of the test goes, but from my understanding this particular evaluator will walk away with the dog. If I put him in a down stay and have me walk away out of sight, he is fine. But the act of someone else taking his leash and having him walk away from me does not go over well. We have found if the person taking him actually "works" with him...first has him sit, down, heal, etc and then walk away, he does slightly better but still initially resists and seems confused.

Any ideas or suggestions how to get him through this? As you can imagine there is a short list of people he doesn't know who would be willing to do this, and once he gets to know the person there isn't any problem....(for example he is fine with our trainer now). I do have family coming for Thanksgiving so I plan to put them to work helping me with this!!

To give you his history, Trooper is about 5 years old and I adopted him about 8 months ago. We are doing the CGC just for fun as I thought it would be a good goal for both of us.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

When Jax took her cgc, the instructor took the leash and I walked away. You might want to check on that. 

I think she passed only because my obedience instructor was sitting right there. LOL

If you find out it's different than Jax's the only suggestion I would make is start having alot of other ppl handle him.


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## BlackPuppy (Mar 29, 2007)

In the test YOU take the dog into the separation room. I totally understand your dog not wanting to walk away with a stranger.


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## WVGSD (Nov 28, 2006)

I just took and passed the CGC test last week. In my class, the instructor or stranger just held the dog's leash while the owners walked out of sight in to another room. We stayed out of the dog's sight for three minutes and were then called to return. The dogs did not have to do anything except allow someone else to hold them/their leash for three minutes. As long as they were quiet and not overly anxious, they passed. Only one Weimaraner failed because she was extremely anxious and very vocal when her owner left her sight. The dogs could stand, sit or lie down during the three minutes. They simply had to be okay with someone else holding their leash and paying attention to them while the owner was out of sight. 

Shannon


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

This item was a struggle for Nikon and I. He passed all other 9 items when he was 10 months.

We worked it as an obedience exercise - a down stay. I did down-stays at home, at training, at the pet store....I even met up with our instructor at the pet store and did down-stays while I walked out each of the doors.

The day of the test I made sure he had a lot of exercise, so he was not his hyper self either. He broke the down-stay but he stayed with the stranger and did not make a peep (usually he's howling before I'm even out the door).


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## torizmojo (Apr 26, 2009)

I've done this test with 5 different dogs/judges, and they've always stayed with the dog and I've had to leave the area. I don't think my guys would've liked being taken away either.

My first dog that I took the CGC with was a rescue with lots of issues. She whined a couple of times during the Supervised Separation and still passed. I was told as long as it isn't a constant, but I think its up to each judge to decide how much is too much.

Good luck with your boy!


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## Dnahjj (Oct 28, 2009)

I took my 1st Shepherd years ago for her CGC test and the judge failed her because she whined 1 time. It must have been very soft because non of the other people in the room heard her and couldn't believe she did not pass. I put her in a down when I left and she never moved at all.

I have never taken another dog for the CGC test since that time. The guidelines for judging at that time stated they would be failed for constantly whining.



Joe


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

> Originally Posted By: BlackPuppyI totally understand your dog not wanting to walk away with a stranger.


But what about when your dog goes to the vet and they need to take them in back for surgery or xrays? Of you take the dog to the boarding kennel and they have to take them to their run?

I want my dog to learn to willing go with someone IF I tell them to.

So I would practice this as a command - Go With Them.


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

When Mauser was tested we did it as part of the training class we were in - the last week of class was the test. Each dog did the first exercises on their own but the Supervised Separation was done as a group. We handed off the leash to another person, took THEIR dog's leash and everyone walked away about 100 feet. Some went on the other side of a treeline so most dogs could not see their owners.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

In Halo's class we'd trade leashes with someone else in the class, and half went outside while the other half stayed in the room. We alternated each week so everyone had the opportunity to practice it several times each way - walking away from their dog, and having someone else walk away with their dog. In the test it was done the same way as there were not enough extra people to have all the people leave or all the dogs leave. 

Halo was fine with it either way, but I wondered if that was completely fair. The dog that stayed in the room with me was stressed enough that it wasn't a clear pass on that exercise, but since you can re-do one of the 10 exercises and still pass the test, the owner opted to try it again, and this time someone walked her dog out of the room, which he was okay with. I would think that either scenario could be difficult, depending on the dog. For some dogs, being left behind while their owner walked away would be more traumatic than walking away with someone else, especially if they're a friendly, social type that likes people.


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## Chicagocanine (Aug 7, 2008)

The way it was done the times I took or watched the CGC, the owner hands the leash to the person who stays in the room with the dog. The person does not take the leash and walk away.

Although actually if they had done it the other way my terrier would have been able to pass! He had no problem walking away from me with someone else, but if I tried to walk away and leave him in place (even with a family member) he would bark and pull nonstop until I returned. I wondered if that was because he was abandoned.


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

How the supervised separation is done totally depends on the evaluator. There is no one correct way.

The evaluator's guide says this:



> Quote:
> An Evaluator will hold the leash of the dog while
> the owner goes out of sight for 3 minutes.


http://www.akc.org/pdfs/cgc/GK9GC9.pdf

Every time I've had a dog evaluated for the CGC, something was different than the time before. It helps to know what the evaluator's guide says, but a lot of it is rather vague and the evaluator decides on best format for her.


To train for the supervised separation, I create supervised separation situations. On days when they're not so busy, I ask my vet if I can arrive with my dog, hand her off to a vet tech in the lobby, then walk out the front door for several minutes. I do private lessons where I hand off my dog to our trainer who walks my dog around an outdoor shopping mall, comes back to meet me, then they head off again. I use several trainers, so my dog doesn't get comfortable with just one person. I take my dog to the training facility for training and I hand my dog off to various staff who take my dog back to meet the trainer, then I walk back to meet her. 

I like using trainers and their staff because they're used to dealing with whiny squirmy young dogs and won't reward bad behaviors (jumping up, whining, lunging) like friends might be inclined to do. 

In class, the instructors include handing off leashes to other owners within the coursework as well.


I make a substantial effort into making my dogs comfortable with supervised separations because I think it IS an important skill. Every dog I've ever owned has needed tests and procedures at veterinary offices that weren't our regular vet. It's nice to be able to hand off the leash and not have to worry that the dog is going to freak out. Not so much for the humans' sake.... but for my dog's.









And in the event of an emergency that a friendly stranger needs to take control of my dog (a car accident perhaps), I suspect that he'll be treated with more compassion and fewer sedatives if he's relatively calm.


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

> Originally Posted By: Lauri & The Gang
> 
> 
> > Originally Posted By: BlackPuppyI totally understand your dog not wanting to walk away with a stranger.
> ...



My dogs always seem to be more comfortable walking AWAY From me than my walking away from them, leaving them.

I guess they assume I'll be there when they get back...like the whole world revolves around them.









So it just depends.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

People do the test differently. I have even heard where you walk out of the room where all the dogs are being tested and someone holds your dog in that room. I have always had to take my dog into the separation room and come back into the main room, or hide. 

I agree though it makes sense to have the dog able to walk away with a semi-stranger. My dogs have to walk away with vet techs and with the groomers. I tell them "Go with her" and point. They do not like it, but they get used to it. 

My suggestion is to have a person that you and your dog know help you with this. Use treats. Even if the dog already will go with them. Tell him about fifty times, Go with her and point, have the person gently pull the dog and show the treats and offer the treat while you are still insight first, but then wait until after they turn a corner. Then start increasing the time. Once the dog readily goes with this person, you can start fading a little with the treats so he gets treats some of the time, and then only after three or four minutes. 

When you get to this point, enlist another friend or family member. If you can get him to go with three or four different people, that would be very good. Enlist your vet's office. Over the phone explain what you are trying to do, come in and have them offer him treats as they walk away with him, and then bring him right back. 

I think you can overcome this. Good luck.


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## DancingCavy (Feb 19, 2001)

For ours, I handed the leash over to the evaluator and I went inside for 3 minutes (the test was outdoors). I don't think Risa even realized I was gone.


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## cjauch (Jul 2, 2009)

Thank you for the advice and suggestions everyone! 

At the vet he has had to go with the techs in the past and he has no problem with that...it's almost as if he surrenders and just accepts it. But as soon as I hand his leash over in class to someone new (now not our trainer or others in the class because he seems to find them familiar) he just does the turtle impression.

We'll continue to work on this and let you know how it goes!!


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Personally I think it's an odd test item. Never would I hand off my dogs to a stranger and walk out of the building for several minutes. The vet and vet techs are not "strangers" - we've met them before, I know who they are and what is happening, the dogs have been in that environment before, and I can give them a treat or a toy to coax my dog along unlike the test which for us has always been a complete stranger and no treats or toys, plus an environment where the dog is not "at home" (I can put my dog on a down-stay at home or our training field and run errands out of sight for several minutes). I'd rather see it replaced with something more practical like settling in a crate for three minutes.


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

You've never used an e-vet, Lies? Or a specialist? Yes, you don't walk out the door, but depending on the circumstances, they often need to take your dog away from you. 

I've had two emergencies where I literally handed my dog to the tech and they took her back right then. All I could do is say "I'll be here"; the dog looked back, then calmly disappeared through the doors.

When my dog bloated, there wasn't time to do or say anything else. The same with my dog who was having breathing problems (later determined to be congestive heart failure). Time was of the essence.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

It's never been a problem for me in those situations so far, but I really don't care how the dog reacts in an emergency, *I* trust the vet or tech because I know who they are and saught help, so to me that is not handing off a dog to a stranger and the dog is going whether they like it or not. If I go for an emergency then generally there is something majorly wrong with my dog to begin with and s/he cannot be expected to behave as trained anyway, and the techs are already trained to deal with all manor of separation anxiety. So far my dogs have gone off with the vet techs, it hasn't been a problem like separation. Maybe something to do with moving around rather than being handed off and then left. The vet techs talk to the dog, pet the dog, give them treats. Sometimes the stranger on the test will, but sometimes all I see/hear is silence, they are just holding the leash and not interacting with the dog.


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## JenM66 (Jul 28, 2005)

The first time we took the CGC, we failed because Gracie was so hysterical with me walking away from her. The second time we took it, the evaluator took her leash and walked away with her. We passed with flying colors. As Lauri said we need our dogs to be willing to go without us at the vet and I am really glad that our evaluator did it the way she did. Gracie willingly goes with techs at teh vet - good thing!!


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## Chicagocanine (Aug 7, 2008)

> Originally Posted By: LiesjePersonally I think it's an odd test item. Never would I hand off my dogs to a stranger and walk out of the building for several minutes. The vet and vet techs are not "strangers" - we've met them before, I know who they are and what is happening, the dogs have been in that environment before, and I can give them a treat or a toy to coax my dog along unlike the test which for us has always been a complete stranger and no treats or toys, plus an environment where the dog is not "at home" (I can put my dog on a down-stay at home or our training field and run errands out of sight for several minutes). I'd rather see it replaced with something more practical like settling in a crate for three minutes.


Actually I just did that sort of thing recently. I took Bianca (and the cats) to a screening appointment for an animal blood donor program, which is at a new emergency vet clinic. Part of it is a physical exam and they had to take them in the back treatment area where the vet was to do that because the vet was busy. They also want to make sure they are comfortable in that environment before they accept them in the program.
My previous dog Ginger had no problem either staying with someone (or alone) or walking away with someone-- she did the CGC just fine and also therapy dog testing where they actually had everyone leave their dogs in the room (with a few people watching all the dogs.) 
She never had any problem with those things until after she had to stay at the ER overnight when she bloated and had emergency surgery for GDV. After that she put on the brakes whenever the vet or tech would try to take her out of the room away from me, even if it was just to be weighed. She just refused to go. When I had to move her from the ER to my regular vet the morning after surgery I had to bring her to the back myself and put her in the cage. The next day when I brought her back for an EKG I had to go back and stay with her for it because she would not leave the room without me. From then on I just went back with her for everything-- x-rays, a biopsy once, etc...luckily for me my vet opened her own clinic last year and I started to volunteer/work for her, so she did not mind me staying for those procedures. My vet always did things like blood draw and etc in the exam rooms anyway.


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

There's also groomers. If you take your dog to the groomers you hand off the dog and leave.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

About two years ago, Arwen needed an ultrasound for possibly hemangiosarcoma. I took her to the Akron Vet about 2 1/2 hours away from my home. I handed her leash to the vet and we walked together out of the room, I was going to sit with my dad in the waiting room (he came so I could go on to work and he could take her home). 

She kept walking with me and I just pointed in the other direction, said "go with him" and she turned and went with him. 

That is what they are looking for. If your dog is stressed out just by being there or being handled by someone they never met before, could the possible get a good examination.


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## Smithie86 (Jan 9, 2001)

> Originally Posted By: Lauri & The GangWhen Mauser was tested we did it as part of the training class we were in - the last week of class was the test. Each dog did the first exercises on their own but the Supervised Separation was done as a group. We handed off the leash to another person, took THEIR dog's leash and everyone walked away about 100 feet. Some went on the other side of a treeline so most dogs could not see their owners.


That is what we do. The training for the CGC is part of normal OB training. Not another 6 week class.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

I took a CGC prep class with Halo because she was 7 months old, we had just come out of Puppy 2, she was somewhere between level one and level two, and the things we were weak in were the specific things that the CGC tests for - polite leash walking and greetings of people and other dogs. I also had no idea how she'd do with the 3 minute separation and didn't think we'd be practicing that in any other class I might take, so I wanted that opportunity. 

Rather than doing a complete rehash of all the things she'd already learned, or going to the next step where we might not be spending as much time on the things I wanted to work on with her, the CGC class was tailor-made for us - it helped me to know what we need to work on in order to pass the test. Since then we did take the Family Dog 2 class, but a lot of the stuff she was REALLY good at a lot of the other dogs weren't, and we spent more time on those things than I wanted, and less time on things that I would have preferred. That is the nature of group classes though, the most class time is spent of what the majority of dogs need work on. Halo has really solid down stays and I would have liked to have more distractions, but she was way ahead of everyone else in class. There was one dog who barely had a down at all, and Halo would drop immediately into a down on a verbal command and I could drop the leash and walk away from her, run circles around her, jump up and down, and she wouldn't budge.

Since we had taken all our classes other places I had to make an appointment for an evaluation with Halo to figure out which class she should be in, and she was actually approved to go into Family Dog 2 or 3, but the next FD3 class was on a bad day and time for me, and they said that if they didn't get enough dogs signed up it would be cancelled anyway. I wanted to get one more class in with her before the holidays, and FD2 was Saturday mornings, ending last weekend, which was perfect. The woman we met with did say that sometimes FD2 was more like FD 1-1/2, and sometimes more like FD3, and in this case I thought it was the former. There were a couple of very young dogs, only 6 months old, who had probably just finished FD1. Whenever our homework was something I didn't feel that Halo needed more practice on I'd work on other things instead, but it still would have been nice to have the class time to do it because it's not always easy to set up that kind of situation, where you've got a lot of other dogs and people in a small area to work around.


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## Smithie86 (Jan 9, 2001)

We do not do the basic ob with puppies until they are at least 6 months old. That is why we can do the CGC, if wanted.


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## trudy (Aug 25, 2008)

I take my dogs almost everywhere with me and when I leave them in the car I always say wait I'll be back. And when I did the CGN that is what I said and we never trained for it but they just lay down and waited, watching intently, and in a new place with all new people and dogs they had never met. Both passed with great compliments.


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## Chicagocanine (Aug 7, 2008)

Hey look I just used this exercise yesterday (well, except without the 'going out of sight' part...









Handing your dog's leash to a stranger and walking away:


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