Hey all,
I lived for several years in the Orlando area and I'm considering heading back there before too long.
I've been told how the different dog training clubs have changed, some having changed *a lot*

So, for anyone in that general area, where are the best places to train for a *serious* trainer? I'm looking specifically for SchH and AKC Obedience clubs.


Thanks,
Will

Will, do you know Ed Reyes? He has been training for about 15 years and is really "good people." You also have the hotdog man who trains there, lol, (all in good fun)

Will, if you come down here how about starting up an ASR club? Mike Schoonbrood, myself and at least several other people are willing and ready to make it happen. And I suspect there are many, many more working dog owners that would love an outlet. As far as I've been able to find over the years there ain't much. Get down here Will!

Have to agree with Patrick. A couple small clubs in Sch and there was an ASR club here but I dont know if its still up and running. I'll keep my ears open. We used to have a Sch club training in Melbourne but I have seen little of them lately.

Will, that place is an armpit. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> What on earth would make you consider it????

Well I recently (within the last year) went through the process of searching for working dog clubs and I can tell you this was my findings:

1) COPS: Central Florida Police and Schutzhund club. Smaller club based out of Sanford. I trained with them exclusively for the first 8 months and then we lost our training field and have basically been wandering souls ever since. We had mostly GSD's and Mals.

2) SCO: Schutzhund Club of Orlando. Gotten in contact with them multiple times via email. Always outwardly friendly and inviting but haven't ever actually made it out to train with them.

3) AKC: I looked into this once and found one large club all breed website and emailed with no response. Can't remember the name but it was linked off the AKC Site.

4) SAR: There's a SAR club around here also that I emailed with no response. They have pictures up on their website as well but have never gotten in contact with them.

Then of course you have Ivan Balabanov down in Lakeland. And I think some other "big" name trainer about an hour away. I wanna say Gottfried, but don't quote me. My club tried to relocate their temporarily but to no avail.

I know other people on the board (Mike S.) have contacted me about training. There's definately a crowd of us. I know a new helper looking to get experiance too that used to train with COPS. I'd personally love to train anytime so I'd be down with starting a club or joining a group.

Keep us posted on your decision, eh.

Jeff,

Mike and I have been training 1-2X per week for the past 6 months. We've also met several other people who train and I think we're getting there. We train for ASR and PPD. I would encourage you to come out and meet us and see what we do and then you might want to work with us...or not. Frankly, I'd like to see a dog training club with various members training for Schutzhund, ASR, PPD, etc. Why not? We can still help each other and learn from one another. Send me a PM if you'd like to hook up sometime; I hope you will. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

There is Ed Reyes, who was mentioned in Sanford area. Nice guy. Gottfried is now training at our old field in Astatula. SCO is the same decoy who is our WDA club training director/decoy. SCO is the oldest DVG club in the US. They own their own field. But all this is basically sch. stuff <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Ed does do some ppd training last I knew.

It's not that far of a drive from Orlando to southern Georgia, there's a guy up there that some have started calling Rambo, who's supposed to be pretty good. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Orlando sure is a lot closer to me than your current location <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
And not terribly far from Jacksonville, where Randy Theen is currently at <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Let us know if you make the move, maybe we can get together to train some time.