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WITH CONNIE CLEVELAND

Connie Cleveland is an internationally recognized dog trainer who offers specialized weekend training seminars to competitive obedience competitors around the USA and internationally. 

★★★★★

Connie's seminars focus on understanding how dogs learn and clear communication. She is passionate about helping people at all levels of the sport.

Seminars begin with a discussion about How Dogs Learn.  Then she spends time working individually with each team attending. 

Generally, there are people who are unsure how to teach, or having difficulty with attention, heeling, and retrieving. However, commonly, she tackles more advanced subjects, such as choreographing your performance, maintaining a trained dog's attitude and problem solving difficult exercises.  

Upcoming Seminars

If you'd like to attend a seminar, please contact the organizer listed. 

2025 

2026 

Interested in hosting Connie Cleveland for a weekend seminar in your area?


Scroll down for details on how to bring her internationally recognized training - designed for competitive obedience handlers of all levels - to your local community.

Seminar Options

For further information, and to book, reach out to Connie Cleveland at [email protected] 

Connie Cleveland Problem Solving Seminar

I offer a limited number of my signature Problem-Solving Seminars, focused on individualized coaching and in-depth training support.

How it works

I typically begin my seminars by spending an hour on the morning of the first day discussing how dogs learn. I then work with the handlers and dogs attending.

Generally, there are people having problems, or are unsure how to teach attention, heeling, retrieving, and recalls, so this becomes the focus of the first day. The second day will cover a variety of problems and questions, such as go-outs, articles, drop on recalls, poor ring performances, etc.

The seminar is limited to 20 working teams. Each team is worked individually. This allows for approximately 35 minutes per team over the course of the two days. If you want each participant to have more time, you may choose to have fewer working spots.

You may have as many spectators as your facility can accommodate. Plan for the working space to be the size of a utility ring.

 

Connie Cleveland & Kelsey Wehr Working Seminar

I’ve teamed up with Kelsey Wehr, my Obedience Road partner, to co-teach a dynamic, hands-on seminar format. This new style gives participants multiple opportunities to work their dogs throughout the two-day event - making it an ideal experience for those who learn best by doing.

How it works

These seminars are designed to give participants multiple opportunities to work their dogs during the two-day event.

The seminar will have short group discussions, and then divide into a beginning and advanced sections.

For example, Saturday morning will have two groups working on heeling. The basic group will work on attention through Novice/Open heeling patterns. The advanced group will work on Utility heeling and signals. Each participant will choose a group to join and will take turns working dogs with their group members. When all participants have had a turn, another breakout session will begin dividing the members between basic and advanced retrieving skills.

There will be three breakout sessions each day. Typically, Saturday’s sessions will focus on heeling, retrieving, and jumping exercises. Sunday’s sessions include position changes, preparing to show, and an opportunity for the participant to choose what he/she wants to review. Participants are welcome to bring more than one dog but can only work one dog per breakout session.

Kelsey and I will alternate between the beginning and advanced groups so that each participant gets equal input from both of us.

The seminar can accommodate 6 breakout sessions for 18 working teams. Alternately, we could consider 27 teams that each participate in 4 breakout sessions. You may have as many spectators as your facility can accommodate. Plan for a working space to be the size of two rings. 

Participant Feedback

"I just want to say the seminar more than exceeded my expectations. Connie is very detailed and a wealth of practical  information.  Aside from getting my own problem solved, I liked watching and learning from Connie as she worked with the other teams.  I also liked the science behind training (use of reward markers, understanding how dogs learn, types of errors and how to apply corrections) and how this was presented ahead of time. It sunk in better as Connie role modeled and reinforced the concepts over the weekend. Laid out in a systematic way, her system gives you a framework to train and encourages you to think through your problems, focus on the dog in front of you, and make adjustments to better your handling skills."

"Connie is an excellent speaker and has the knowledge to address every aspect of obedience and each team's specific needs.  She offers various ways to address the same problem depending on the dog's response to the training or fix of a problem.  She kept the audience engaged with her input of funny personal stories and humor."

" I loved how Connie included basic skills for people who are newer to obedience.  She really took her time and not only helped them solve problems, but taught them the basic skills they needed.  She did this in a way that encouraged them to continue in obedience, but also with a dose of a reality check about having and using corrections when needed for all situations.   Her continuous work with Bella over two days was a great example of her commitment to helping with problems, not just obedience exercises."

Thank you! It was a great weekend!
I wasn’t sure how you were going to work through ~20 handlers/dogs each with their own challenges, including different levels of obedience training and performance. The individualized sessions allowed us each to correctly feel well heard and well helped. And, the cumulative sessions really did give us a sense of not only exercises to use for specific problems but, also, a sense of your overall Obedience Road curriculum.
It was interesting to me that when I was in the “ring” with Ella and you, I really did not think about or worry about people watching. My focus was all on what we were doing. It was like being in a closed space within a much larger space.
I probably should have realized it before, but I had not recognized how much of a human psychologist you have to be to help people train their dogs. Wow! Lots of emotions out there as an overlay to: "I would like my dog to do . . . .  " But, you managed both the dog challenges and the handler issues firmly, but supportively on a case-by-case basis. Although you have defined a clear framework (“the principles don’t change”) in which to teach, you tailored each session to the situation at hand. That’s what makes your approach special and the workshop so meaningful.
I’m still smiling about your comment about the 2 hour set the comedian you recently saw performed. That mostly scripted, humorous soliloquy cannot compare to the 8 hours (each day) you spend on your feet, listening to handlers share their challenges, and then having to instantly come up with workable solutions to implement right then and there. No place to hide. No set script to use. You have to apply your cumulative knowledge to each different handler, each different dog, and each different challenges. That’s a lot to process and “perform.”
It was impressive to see how far some of the participants traveled to be involved. And, I am confident everyone went home well satisfied - and wanting more! That’s solid, albeit labor intensive marketing.
Ella and I have our work cut out. We’ll get up early in the morning and take some more steps down Obedience Road!

~ Warren & Ella

The Obedience Road

A complete online resource with everything you need to succeed at competitive obedience.

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