Maggie’s nose didn’t fail her.
Confronted with a cluster of small weights, the 5-year-old Australian cattle dog quickly sniffed out and retrieved the one that had been handled by her owner, Jessica Haney of Jeannette.
“She loves obedience and scent work and tracking,” Haney said. She put Maggie through her paces recently at the Westmoreland Obedience Training Club training center in Salem, practicing for upcoming obedience competitions.
“Maggie and I have been competing since she was 7 months old,” said Haney, who is the club’s recording secretary. “She’s a savant when it comes to this stuff.
“That’s the fun stuff for dogs, when they use their nose. As long as she’s having fun, we’ll do it.”
At Haney’s direction, Maggie also leaped over canine-scaled jumps and retrieved a particular glove that her owner indicated from among several scattered across the floor.
Haney and her dog completed a practice run through a course designed for the highest “utility” class of obedience competition. Maggie already has earned a Utility Dog certification through American Kennel Club-sanctioned competition and now is working toward a Utility Dog Excellent title.
With one competitive event down and nine to go, she must earn qualifying scores in both open and utility classes at 10 trials.
“I have the feeling we’ll get it by the end of next year,” said Haney.
The Westmoreland club hosts three trials each year in its center at the Delmont North Industrial Park. Other trials are offered in Butler, Clarion and sites in Ohio.
A second-generation obedience competitor, Haney works as a professional dog trainer and also instructs other dog-handler teams on a volunteer basis for the nonprofit Westmoreland club.
After completing her own practice session, she took on the role of judge as fellow club member and instructor Nancy Glabicki led her recently adopted Belgian Malinois Aggie through a beginning novice obedience practice.
Though the Plum resident has owned the 4-year-old Malinois for just three months, the dog already earned qualifying placements in two events at a Washington County dog show, bringing her two-thirds of the way toward completing her novice title.
“I have her entered in April in two different shows in Saxonburg and Clarion,” said Glabicki. “There are dog shows every weekend somewhere.
“She has a lot of energy and is very friendly. She has to let strangers come up and touch her and learn to come when she’s called and stay when she’s not to be running.”
She noted the Malinois is “a very intelligent breed, and they love to work. The police use them a lot.”
Glabicki also owns Cutter, an 11-year old male of the related Belgian Tervuren breed. He is nearing the end of a competitive career that includes championship status in confirmation and tracking and additional titles in agility and scent work.
The Westmoreland club hosts scent trials where dogs are challenged to detect the odors of anise, birch or clove on objects.
The club’s facility is busy seven days a week, with competitions, practice sessions and classes that cover the various needs and skill levels of dogs and their owners.
While some owners hope to train their pet to be a top dog in competitive obedience events, others simply want to have a dog that is well-mannered and will respond to commands.
“You have to socialize them, you have to get them out, and this is a great place to do it,” Glabicki said of the training center.
There usually are waiting lists for the classes offered at the center — including Basic I and Basic II obedience courses of eight weekly sessions each, taught during evenings by Cecilia Daly of Monroeville, the club president.
Since the pandemic, which shut the center down for four months in 2020, class sizes have been reduced from a dozen dog-handler teams to about 10, to allow the participants more space, Daly said.
“Initially, we saw more shy dogs,” she said. “You could tell they weren’t socialized a lot during covid.”
In the two basic obedience courses, Daly said, dogs are taught behaviors that will prepare them for taking a Canine Good Citizen test developed by the American Kennel Club. She explained a dog has to sit nicely while being examined by an evaluator and being groomed. The pooch also must walk calmly on a loose leash and in a crowd and must sit and lie down on command.
Lastly, she said, “The dog is handed off to an evaluator, and the dog has to sit there quietly while the handler is out of the picture for three minutes.”
If all goes as planned with the basic training, she said, “I can see the change in a dog over that 16-week period and how the bond has grown between the dog and their owner. You just build up such a rapport with your dog doing it.
”I enjoy seeing the progress the dogs make — seeing a dog that is not listening to its owner and not paying attention and then seeing how it progresses to where it wants to please the owner and is working with the owner.”
Fees charged for the obedience classes help support costs for the not-for-profit club to maintain its leased training facility.
Over four decades, the club has grown to include more than 200 members and has branched out with Thera-Paws, fielding therapy dogs to visit with residents of care homes or to comfort those affected by a traumatic incident.
Now numbering about 100 members, the therapy group was called into action to assist at Franklin Regional High School — in the aftermath of a mass stabbing on April 9, 2014, when a 16-year-old sophomore, attacked students in a hallway before the start of classes. A security guard and 20 students were injured.
“We went there every day for a week and worked with the counselors, the teachers and the students,” Daly said. “After that, the Thera-Paws program really took off.
“It is extremely rewarding. You’ll see people who will respond to the dogs and nothing else.”
The therapy dogs also participate in programs where children will bolster their reading skills as they read stories to the dogs.
Visit wcotc-dogs.com for more information about the Westmoreland club and its programs.
Jeff Himler is a TribLive reporter covering Greater Latrobe, Ligonier Valley, Mt. Pleasant Area and Derry Area school districts and their communities. He also reports on transportation issues. A journalist for more than three decades, he enjoys delving into local history. He can be reached at jhimler@triblive.com.
