History of the Club
The Canine Obedience Club of Townsville arose from the amalgamation of two dog training clubs in 1971. The Club then affiliated with the State Controlling Body, The Canine Control Council of Queensland, and has been conducting basic and advanced obedience lessons and official competitions ever since.
The Club initially conducted basic obedience lessons at Hanran Park on the banks of Ross Creek, moved briefly to a car park at the Vincent Village Shopping centre and made its final move to Heatley Park.
Initially there were about 30 members and as obedience lessons became more popular over the years, membership peaked to nearly 400.
The early days saw an average of twenty dogs at a training session. This has steadily grown over the last 36 years and some weeks saw more than 100 dogs and their owners attending classes – a truly impressive sight to see on the park!
The Canine Obedience Club of Townsville is the only non-profit dog-training club in Townsville / Thuringowa. Our mandate is to train handlers to train their dogs using positive reinforcement, thus promoting good behaviour in the canine population.
Throughout the year competitions are conducted under the rules set out by the Canine Control Council in obedience, agility, jumping, tracking, and endurance. The Club is proud to have the honour of having nine Australian Obedience Champions, three Tracking Champions, a National Agility Champion and Australia’s first ever Agility Champion under the new rules.
The last 4-5 years has seen agility become extremely popular, resulting in the introduction of new competitions in jumping and agility games. These new competitions meant the Club had to make and purchase extra equipment, posing problems in adequately storing it all in a manner that was not only neat and tidy but also safe for members to move out to the park and return when finished.
In 2006 the Club made application to the Gambling Community Benefit Fund for financial assistance, and with support from the Townsville City Council were fortunate to secure the full amount of $25,497.
The challenge then was to find a builder who would be willing to take on a small project at a time when building activity in the twin cities is at an all time high, and to have it completed within the time limit imposed by the Benefit Fund. For that the Club extends its’ gratitude to builder Simon Gallagher who agreed to take on the project. Construction commenced in November 2006, and, apart from a few problems encountered with the site and a couple of minor adjustments to the plan, finished the job in January 2007.
We look forward to offering dog owners in the Twin Cities basic obedience lessons and encouraging handlers to go further in their training either for fun or to enter competitions.