APDT Good Companion Awards

Cambridge Dogs runs group courses covering:

• Puppy

• Foundation (equivalent to our Adult beginners)

• Improver (Adult Lifeskills)

• Intermediate awards

• Advanced awards

for the APDT Good Companion Awards.

The APDT Good Companion Awards are awards that can be achieved by pet dog guardians together with their dog. Guardians will be assessed on their dog training skills, knowledge of dog welfare, behaviour and all-round good companionship. Your dog will be assessed on their ability to achieve what is asked of them by you. 

Designed to be non-competitive, the guardian and dog will work together as a partnership to reach set criteria in life skills. These life skills enable dogs to become well-mannered members of society; they are open to all breeds no matter their age. There are currently four levels that may be offered by your instructor. 

Any full member of the APDT can assess your partnership, whether that be as part of a course they offer in class or on a one-to-one basis. Your instructor will give you details of how they intend to work. You can be confident that the standard you reach can be achieved using only kind, fair and effective methods.

General guidelines

The APDT Good Companion Awards have been carefully designed to help dog guardians to attain an award for being a good companion to their dog, and their dog a good companion to them.

Your assessor will be a current full member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers in the UK, and as such they will abide by the code of practice by which the association is bound. If you wish to look this up, it can be found at the APDT Code of Practice.

You should have poo bags and your dog should be wearing a legal ID tag, which includes the name and address of the owner.

These exercises can be assessed at any time during the training course and can be attempted as many times as is deemed appropriate within a six-week limit. The assessor will ask questions throughout; details of the areas of knowledge that will be drawn upon can be found in the ‘Guardian Information Pack’.

There are currently four levels of award that can be assessed. The level one award has two slightly different curricula, either for Puppies under the age of seven months at the end of the assessment, or Foundation for dogs over six months of age, but new to the awards/training.

It is intended that there is a progression through the award stages, so a guardian/dog combo is unable move onto the next level until the previous one has been passed satisfactorily. In the more advanced awards, there are some elements of choice of exercise. This may be at the discretion of your instructor, or you may be given your own choice.