Seminars at Central Penn Sporting Clays
Seminar Location
The address to Central Penn Sporting Clays is 75 Quarry Road, Wellsville, PA 17365.
Where to stay
We’ve compiled a list of local hotels and motels. Additionally, camping is available at Gifford Pinchot State Park.
What to expect
Each day will begin promptly at 8am. There will be coffee and continental breakfast served each morning, and plenty of snacks and water available. Lunch is provided. Dinner is on your own.
The seminar will focus on fundamental concepts and exercises, as well as their specific applications to more advanced work. Sometimes people come to seminars expecting the presenter to problem solving issues with their training. But training is a process, not an event. Typically the problem you think you have is just a symptom of the real issue, which is usually shaky fundamentals.
We will cover each basic exercise, and the application of the training system to it, through role play with humans, then start pulling out dogs to train. Training sessions will be short, 5 - 15 minutes, with 2 - 10 dogs working at a time depending on the exercise. We’ll put a running order together the morning of day 1 to keep this moving smoothly. Then I’ll demonstrate with a personal dog so that you get a feel for various stages in the training process for an exercise. Try to be quick when you are running your dog to and from the the seminar facility. You’ll learn as much or more observing others working with their dogs as you will working your own dog.
I will answer questions during the seminar but ask that you write them on the whiteboard during lunch or at the end of the day, and we’ll talk about them after that. This helps ensure we stay on time and cover all the content that is planned.
We’ll take a break every 1 - 2 hours, lunch will be served between noon and 1pm, and we’ll finish each day around 5pm. Saturday the seminar will end around 3 or 4pm so that we can hold our wobble trap tournament. So please bring your shotgun, if you own one (or you can rent one from the facility). You’ll need low brass lead loads of size 7 or smaller. I’m a decent shot and did pretty well at the first seminar so I’ll be sure to have some rewards for folks who best me in the shoot!
We will have everything necessary for field work present (live game, gunners, etc.), but we will only do field work when the weather allows it to be reasonably safe, and for dogs who are actually ready to work on those skills. So if you want to work on step 10 of a process, expect me to ask you to see steps 1 - 9 first.
Site Details
On the map below, we’ve noted:
Parking (blue circle) - Opposite sides of the lot are shaded in morning and afternoon. You can move your vehicle to keep it in the shade as needed.
Lunch pavilion and restrooms (yellow star) - There is one full bathroom in the office and a port-a-potty on the side of the house.
Seminar location (red rectangle) - We will be meeting inside the barn. There is no climate control but will have fans running.
For your dog’s safety and comfort
All dogs must be on leash at all times unless you are specifically told by a staff member to do otherwise. Dogs should be kenneled in your vehicle if possible when not actively working. Assume all other dogs and people are aggressive. Please keep your hands and your dog to yourself. We don’t want dogs directly interacting with each other, and we don’t want people trying to interact with other people’s dogs, during the seminar. You are here to learn and train. After the seminar ends each day, you are free to do as you please on your own time and when off the seminar premises.
In the event that the weather is hot and humid… You can leave windows down and/or doors open, and park in the shade. We recommend having a battery powered fan on them to keep air flowing. Another good option is aluminet, which is a woven metal fabric you can drape over your vehicle which reflects a lot of heat.
We understand that not all dogs will be well conditioned to the weather so we will have a handful of kennels inside the building where we will be meeting. It is shaded and has good airflow. If your dog cannot be quiet in a crate they will have to remain in your vehicle so that they do not negatively impact the experience of other attendees. We will not have room to accommodate everyone’s dogs in the facility space.
Whenever we are working dogs we will have small pools and a hose available to wet dogs down and cool them off. You should consider dunking/spraying your dog before you begin working them, and immediately after working them. Then put them back in their kennel with a fan on so that they can have some evaporative cooling action.