“DCH for everyone
DCH’s motto is “DCH for everyone”, and that sums up what DCH means to me rather well. It doesn’t matter whether you have a pedigree dog or a crossbreed, whether you dream of competitions and the Danish Championships, or simply want to enjoy a pleasant weekly activity with your dog. There should be room for everyone – both dogs and people.
There should be room for everyone – both dogs and people.
Of course, I can best explain how we do things at DCH Risskov, where I train and work as an instructor. We offer many opportunities to train with your dog, and you certainly don’t have to have started in a puppy class to take part. You can join with a dog of any age and at various levels, and find a class that suits you. And DCH is about much more than obedience – there are many different activities and disciplines, depending on what you and your dog enjoy.
The DCH programme – from C to Elite
If you feel like trying your hand at competitions, the DCH programme consists of four classes: C, B, A and Elite. The difficulty and requirements increase as you progress through the programme.
| C | B | A | ELITE |
The C class is the gateway to the competition world for new handlers. The programme consists of heeling on lead, stand, sit, down, jump, search, area search and retrieve. To progress to the B class, you must achieve at least 110 out of 150 points twice.
Once you have qualified from C to B, all your subsequent dogs will start directly in the B class. Here you encounter many of the same exercises, but the difficulty is increased. The lead disappears during off-lead heeling, stand and sit are performed while moving, the handler hides during the down, and the jump, search and area search become more demanding. Tracking and send-away are also introduced as new exercises. Two results of at least 160 out of 200 points qualify you for the A class.
In Class A the requirements become more demanding again. The obedience exercises are expanded, the jump becomes more difficult, the tracking and sending-away exercises become longer, and the search exercise is replaced by a larger search operation in which dog and handler must search a woodland area together for two decoys. There is also a new exercise: barking at a dead object, where the dog must find and bark at a so-called “dead” object – for example, a suitcase or a vacuum cleaner. To qualify for Elite, two scores of at least 260 out of 300 points are required.
The Elite Class is, as the name suggests, the highest class in the DCH programme. This is where you find truly skilled and often highly experienced dog handlers – and, in short, most things become bigger, longer and more difficult. The “dead” object becomes part of the search, for example, and in the jumping exercise the judge decides whether the dog must stand or sit with the retrieve on the other side of the jump.
The programme is designed so that dog and handler are continually challenged more as they develop together.
“The programme is designed so that dog and handler are continually challenged more as they develop together.”
From agility with Goofy to competition dog
My own story with DCH actually began back in the late 1990s, when, as a teenager, I took up agility with my first Toller, Goofy. We had great fun with it, but since I did not yet have a driving licence, I depended on others to get to training. When the people I travelled with stopped, my first DCH adventure came to an end too.
In 2008, I got my next Toller, Mickey, and in 2009 we joined the puppy class at DCH Risskov. The plan was really just to enjoy some pleasant dog training. Then I met the club chairman, Ole.
He persuaded me to become an instructor – and it seems my fate was sealed.
When Baloo, my third Toller, arrived in 2011, he became my first real competition dog, and suddenly the DCH programme began to take up a serious amount of my time.
You learn along the way
With Baloo, I knew virtually nothing about the DCH programme, so I was constantly a little behind. It was not until we had finished in Class C that I realised it might be a good idea to start training tracking, which was waiting for us in Class B.
When we were due to compete in the Danish Championships in Class B in 2016, I thought: Hang on, perhaps I should also start training search work, which is a major part of Class A.
You could safely say that I learned the programme as I went along!
When I got my first Chodsky Pes, Sully, in 2020, I had learned my lesson. We started working on both tracking and search work early on, so this time I could be a little ahead of the game. I am doing the same today with my young Chodsky Pes, Woody, born in 2024.
For me, it’s about constantly developing the training and really getting to grips with each individual exercise. At the same time, it’s important to stay up to date with the programme and any changes. Here at DCH Risskov, we’re lucky to have a chairperson who is very good at keeping us competitors informed.
The teamwork and joy of training are a major part of the motivation in dog sports.
The best thing about DCH
One of the things I value most about DCH is the sense of unity and community. At least in our club, it’s a huge part of what brings us to training.
But of course, I also love dog training itself. Working together with my dogs, their development and the opportunity to really delve into an exercise and find out what works for that particular dog. No two dogs are alike, and that’s a big part of the fascination for me.
My greatest experiences in DCH have been the times when training and working together with my dogs took us all the way to the Danish Championships. In 2016, I competed in the DCH programme at the Danish Championships with Baloo, and in 2025 I competed in IFH3 tracking with Sully. These are experiences I will never forget.
Why do I keep going?
Over the years, DCH has become much more than a place I go to train my dogs.
Of course, it is still the joy and passion for dog training that drives me. I love the process, working together with the dogs and the feeling when something you have worked on for a long time suddenly succeeds.
But DCH has also become a major part of my social life. Today, most of my friendships are within DCH.
So perhaps the motto “DCH for everyone” fits my own story rather well. I started as a teenager with a Toller and an agility group, without any grand plan. Since then, it has grown into several dogs, instructing, countless hours of training, competitions, appearances at the Danish Championships and friendships that last a lifetime.
And I’m still not finished nerding out about dog training.
DCH – dog training, community and room for everyone