Tollador's kennel - Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever & Labrador Retriever

♥ Obedience

It is the most difficult exam worldwide, approved in 2008 in Slovakia. Obedience is one of the fastest spreading dog sports which found its place from England to other countries. One of the biggest fans are in the countries of northern Europe while there weren´t allowed to pass exams from defence. So thanks to tradition, competitors from Scandinavia and Denmark are placed at the first places.
The purpose of the exercise is to teach a dog to perform specific exercises with the cooperation of the handler. The emphasis is placed on the accuracy, dog willingness to cheerfully perform exercises under command and the ability to work at distance from the handler. The dog and handler as pair should show overall good mutual cooperation. Obedience offers new elements to allow us to see that perfect sync Obedience exams consists of OB beginners (A,B,C) and OB 1-3.

The dogs with or without the pedigree can enter the competition. It is convenient for all different breeds, also for those which are not normally seen at some most prestigious competitions and exams. The advantage for training is higher temperament of the dog, his strong nervous system and the joy from the training. We don´t need any special training equipment or big training space to train Obedience.

♥ Obedience rules valid in Slovakia from 1.1.2019 (.pdf):

- Class OB Beginners (A, B, C)
- Class OB 1, OB 2, OB 3
Source: www.dog-obedience.sk

♥ Our beginnings

My first dog, who I started to train more difficult obedience with, (not just basic and classic training of sit, down which was also my case when I was training this with my oldiest bitch of golden retriever Jenny), was labrador Atrey Joy in motion.
Labrador retriever is a hunting dog so our training was firstly led in that direction. It was preparation for breed exam OVVR for verification of innate talents of retrievers, but also hunting exams as field trials, Autumn exam of small breeds and Autumn exam of retrievers.
But, in 2009, when Atrey was 2 years old, we have started to train obedience with Danka Tóthová and some other dog handlers. From this innocent basic trainings, we have started to prepare ourselfs for competitions in Obedience. Gradually we have been learning new tricks and exercises how to prepare a dog for this especially difficult exam.
Me and Atrey was competing and taking part in competitions between years 2009-2011, and we successfully passed exams in classes OB Beginners and also OB 1.
In year 2011 I started to prepare my second dog, a black labrador Tintagelwinds Yakety Yak for this exam, and we also competed in Obedience in next season. Due to his not really good health for competing, we had to finish our season and participating in competiitons. Besides everything, Yaky was very teachable and clever dog, we passed together exams in classes OB Beginners and also OB 1.

I fell in love with this sport, but to have better results, I needed years of experience and skills, eliminating bunch of mistakes which always appear when you try something new. In 2012 we bought a new girl of Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Dragonflame´s Spread Your Wings, Finnie, who we chose just because of Obedience. We wanted to stay with hunting dog, retriever, but we were searching for something smaller, lighter and faster than labrador, convenient for sporting purposes and competing in Obedience. So we found it. I have started to train her with the method of clicker training which brought the desired results. Since 2013 we have actively taking part in competitions in Obedience where we get very nice results. Nowadays, we have already passed exams in classes OB Beginners, OB 1 and OB 2. We are Masters of Obedience of Slovakia in class Beginners and we got also 3rd place at the Youth Obedience Championship of Czech republic. We achieved also nice results at Tollarspecialen 2014 in Sweden. We are multiple winners of League of Obedience in Slovakia.