under a woodsy pavilion, within the green forest parameters of the beautiful Beltzville State Park, you gather with others who have come with their dogs longing to make a splash.  Water gear in tow, you walk your dog down the shaded paths to the grass clearing that welcomes you to the pristine waters of the park’s 949 acre fresh water lake.  A breathtaking background for your learning adventure!  The lake, alive with abundant wildlife and protected by the gorgeous Pocono Mountains, draws you to the waters edge.

At ease with the friendly teaching staff, you look forward to the splash lessons that will help shape your dog into a super water companion, a water companion who can perform meaningful water work like leaping from a boat to retrieve a drifting oar, towing you to shore after a swim, diving for your keys, delivering items from shore to a boater or locating submerged articles by scent.  The day begins and your instructors guide you through various water work stations and provide you with supportive, constructive coaching, respective of your performance level and goals.  You can hardly believe how fast your dog is learning and how easy it is for you to enjoy the moment with her.  Your dog’s eyes speak of her happiness.

The two hour midday break provides you with nourishment for your body and heart as you relax with new friends, laughter and never ending dog stories during a catered lunch.  While you enjoy the chance to further socialize, your dog is given the opportunity to stretch out under the sheltering pines and drift off to sleep or nose up to a summer breeze carrying the smells of a fresh water lake.

The afternoon is again filled with activity and you are soon dog-tired.  The water play has given you reason to seek a soft bed and get some cuddle time with your relaxed canine companion.  The lesson handouts temp you, but you fall asleep early and dream of more water adventure.

Best Reasons to Come to a Splash Camp

It’s SPLASH-RIFIC fun!

It’s a Life Experience!  Discover new depths to your relationship.  Create lasting memories!

It’s Therapeutic!  Boredom is a disease.  Stimulation of the mind and body promotes good health.

It’s Friendly! The cheers of support when a team succeeds.  The coffee klatches filled with smiles and nods when a dog story begins.  The comfortable, laid back conversations with training experts and animal professionals.

Its Communing with Nature!  Earth, Sun, Water, and our Dogs!  Can it get any better?

It’s a Challenge! And, oh so fun to shape raw ability into proficient teamwork.

It’s Creative!  Find reasons to praise, laugh and celebrate and anything is possible.

It’s an Education! Tune up teaching skills, explore new techniques, brush up on the latest in animal behavior and learning about new canine health developments.

It’s Motivating!  An entire holistic camp dedicated to helping your dog succeed.

It’s full of Achievement!  Enjoy those, “Wow, I never knew my dog could do that”, moments.

Our Goals

Our camp goal is to increase awareness of the canine mind, body and spirit, to help you feel the bliss of sharing a positive water experience with your dog and to reward you and your dog for becoming a vital, loving team.

Our training goal is to help you create a happy, healthy, cooperative and useful water dog.  We will show you how to have fun in the water and help you shape canine rescue, utility, and service behaviors for recreation or sports competition.  Compulsion based training techniques are not employed at our camps. We strongly feel that taking away a dog’s choice to seek safety or to explore the water at her own pace will serve to escalate fear and create handler or water avoidance.

Program and Training Groups

1. Minnows
   

The Minnow group is for puppies and dogs under 24 months who love the water and need safe, fun water exposure to build confidence, coordination and endurance.  Learn and practice self-control games like sit-stay and come from shore to water; encourage water play and curiosity with toys and treats; reward wading to get a swimmer; water chase games that encourage following and swimming with handler; foundation work for the unlikely retriever, hand targeting and hand delivery games; exploring for sunken toys; tugging on lines, which teach puppies to pull on demand; boat manners and exposure to water training articles.

1. Sunnies
   

The Sunfish group is for dogs who already enjoy swimming and are ready to learn and rehearse course direction work including speedy returns to the swimmer, rescue circles around swimmers using had targets; stay power in the start box;

attaining dog to swimmer fluidity; weaving as a team between water markers; single article water retrieves that have reliable delivery to hand; head submersions for dogs with toys; canine harness tows for handlers who like water taxi rides; boat manners and test prep for the team swim, novice retrieve and underwater retrieve.

1. Wahoos
   

The Wahoo group is for dogs who have passed their team swim merit and are ready to learn and rehearse platform jumps; looping around markers and boats; single retrieves with changes in articles and travel distance, multiple article retrieves; PREYING for full body submersions; getting your dog to feel comfortable with target drops; delivering a line to a swimmer; 60 ft handler tows from marked distances to shore; and, test prep for retrieve, submersion and delivery work.

Enrollment Terms.

Fees and Registration.

What to bring.

Dog Friendly Lodging

Instructors

NEXT CAMP DATES:   (no camp in 2008)

A Bedlington “Water” Terrier

by Victoria Farrington

My Bedlington Terrier, Hotsupr, and I attended Splash Camp 2002. It was truly one of the highlights of our year and Hotspur was not the oddest breed in attendance. That distinction went to a terrific Boston Terrier who more than compensated with energy and enthusiasm for having a body (how shall we say it politely) not exactly designed by nature for swimming. Yes, there were PWDs, Labs and Chessies, but there were also Australian Shepherds, Rotties and mixed breeds (including Hotspur's favorite, a pitbull mix named Teddy).

Deborah Lee and her staff are as knowledgeable and enthusiastic as her article indicates, the food was wonderful, the location breathtaking, the company delightful, the training centered on positive reinforcement for man and beast both, and I'll be the first one insisting that Deborah Lee tell how we can prepare ourselves and our dogs to get the most out of the next year's camp. Look for us: Hotspur will be the skinny dog wearing the full body wet suit. We discovered last year that while he loves swimming, his lack of coat and sub-cutaneous fat make it more of an "extreme" sport that he can tolerate for long. And amusingly enough, we recently found someone so enchanted with the idea of a cold water Bedlington Terrier that he's giving us a special price on the tiniest four legged neoprene suit he's ever made! I haven't, however, convinced him that it should be hot pink.  The Clicker Journal, 2002