Rich Strong

Rich Strong is one of Indiana's most successful and experienced dog obedience experts.  He has developed a unique obedience training program from his education and experiences that micro-analyzes K-9 behavior from puppy through college level.  This program includes seven different advanced courses in addition to private instruction for dog owners with interests from every day home behavior through highly competitive obedience trial competition.  His step-by-step training methods have produced multi-titled dogs with tournament placements including students who have taken their first obedience pup to Obedience Trial Champion (the PHd of Obedience).  Rich has been training dogs since 1964 and teaching dog obedience classes since 1968.

With 40+ years of training and exhibiting experience, Rich has personally trained several different breeds to multiple obedience titles including many accomplishments with his life long passion, the Golden Retriever.  He is the trainer/exhibitor of two American Kennel Club Obedience Trial Champions (OTCh) with Utility Dog Excellent titles (UDX) and tournament placements.  His Golden Retrievers have been honored with placements in the Golden Retriever Club of America’s Obedience Hall of Fame.

Over the years, Rich has attended seminars throughout the country given by the nations most respected and successful trainers and behaviorists.  His collection of balanced training methods includes from motivational introductory approaches in the early stages of teaching a skill to the use of reward and mild correction after a skill has been learned to increase accountability and reliability.  All of Rich’s training is carefully matched to the characters of the individual dog and trainer.  His primary instructing goal is to help trainers build a set of broad based skills that will enable them to address most common training problems effectively.  Rich’s heart is into all aspects of K-9 behavioral training.  But most importantly, his emphasis is on a flourishing, long-term dog/owner relationship.

Rich is an AKC Obedience Trial Judge at the Novice, Open and Utility levels and has been approved to judge since 1978.  He is approved to judge the Novice, Advanced and Excellent classes of AKC Rally and has served on an AKC Advisory Committee to develop the future of this sport.  His judging experiences have spanned cross-country.  He has judged competitive tournaments such as the World Series of Dog Obedience, the Dog Obedience Clubs of Florida Tournament the All Star Performance Dog Association Obedience & Rally Championships, the AKC Companion Events Tournament and the AKC National Obedience Invitational.  Rich has attended dozens of AKC judging Seminars, judging clinics and discussion sessions.  He is the List Administrator for an Internet e-mail obedience discussion list, OBED-JUDGES.  This e-mail list is a discussion group for more than 200 obedience judges from around the world.

Rich has been active in many dog related organizations with responsibilities that have included the board positions of President, Treasurer and Secretary, and positions of Training Director, Match Chairman and Show/Trial Secretary.  He was the Trial Secretary for the 1994 Gaines Regional Tournament and the 1999 National Dog Obedience Classic.  He has written for several dog obedience publications including the premier obedience magazine “Front & Finish”.  He has been a resident and guest instructor/speaker at many clubs and schools.

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Information on Rich's Advanced Classes

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