The Maine Association of Dogsports (M.A.D.) club participates in various competitive events. Our club has been together since 1998.
Our members bring many diverse breeds and perspectives to training sessions. The members of M.A.D. travel thousands of miles annually to compete against the nation’s and in many cases, the worlds best trainers and dogs.
We compete in many different dog sports, to include obedience, agility and weight pull. Our favorite is the non-pattern personal protection venue.
We find this venue the most realistic and challenging way to bring all the elements of training and teamwork together. We like to train and trial “outside the box”. The pattern is what we try to avoid. Realism in training is what we aspire to. Our goal is to have “go anywhere” dogs that are safe, under control, and happy in the work. In short we prefer functional working dogs that will work in any situation.
We are not “points people”. Our training is practical not technical. We believe that the functionality has disappeared (in most cases) from dog sports.
We avoid pattern style obedience and bite work (for the most part). Traditional obedience and bite work is too much like figure skating for our taste. We enjoy the “seat of your pants” or “real life” obedience and bite work.
For instance, a courage test isn’t really a courage test if the dog knows it is coming. Yes, the traditional courage test puts pressure on the dog but it can be trained for. Dogs can and are “trained” to pass. A real life courage test would have environmental pressure as well as pressure from the decoy and should be a surprise to both dog and handler.
If you would like to learn more about how we train or any of our events, feel free to visit our Contact page and drop us a line.
We host four events per year, the The Swamp Stomp in spring, and the M.A.D. Summer Challenge and the NITE BITE in the fall as well as open to the public bite prevention seminars every year.
Please enjoy our website!
Maine Association of Dogsports
Chris Fraize
President/Training Director
