Episode 49: Dog Scouts of America with Sally Hoyle

In this episode of the Good Dog Pod, host Laura Reeves is joined by Sally Hoyle, President of Dog Scouts of America. Hoyle tells us about the amazing ways that Dog Scouts can help you keep your dog happy and healthy. 

What is Dog Scouts of America? Dog Scouts are just like Boy or Girl Scouts, except your dog is the scout! These four-legged scouts learn anything and everything from swimming, to running agility courses, to painting with their paws. There are over a hundred different skills that dogs can be awarded badges for, and the best way for your dog to learn these skills is during Dog Scouts’ summer camps. 

What happens at Dog Scouts’ summer camps? Dog Scouts has its own campsite in Michigan, which encompasses 80 acres of trails, obstacle courses, lodging, and more. The camp typically lasts for 5 full days of instruction for both dog and owner, with multiple sessions during the season. Dog Scouts welcomes dogs of all ages, sizes, and breeds to participate in the camp. This summer, Dog Scouts will run both virtual and in-person camps. More information can be found on their website here: Dog Scouts Camp Information

What if I can’t travel to the Dog Scout campsite? Dog Scouts also has several smaller satellite campsites, as well as troops across the country. For more information on how to join a troop in your area, or start a new troop, please visit their website here: Dog Scouts Troops

Dog Scouts of America is proud to be celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. 

Will you be attending Westminster 2021? Join us for a Breeder Appreciation Party on Friday, June 11th. The event will be outdoors, at Hudson Anchor Rooftop in Tarrytown, NY. There will be free food, drinks, live music and giveaways. And better yet: dogs are welcome! Make sure to pre-register at: https://bit.ly/3f9fwGr and follow our Facebook Event for the latest updates!

Transcript

Laura Reeves [1:20] Welcome to the Good Dog Pod! I am your host, Laura Reeves. I’m super excited, you guys. I’ve got a great guest for us today. Sally Hoyle is President of Dog Scouts, which I just think is fabulous. Sally’s going to tell us all about why Dog Scouts was created and what Dog Scouts is and how you can participate! So, welcome, Sally. How are you doing today?

Sally Hoyle [1:50] I’m great. How are you? 

Laura Reeves [1:52] I am well! Talk to us. This is just the coolest organization, from what I’ve been able to learn about it. I’m super excited to share that with my listeners. 

Sally Hoyle [2:02] Absolutely. The best way I can describe Dog Scouts of America for people to understand is that it's like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, except the dog is the scout. We are a nonprofit organization, and we focus on teaching our dogs new things so that they can help us more—but also so that we can enrich their lives, because their lives are much shorter than ours and we want to make them as happy and as healthy as possible during their lifetime. We do everything by positive training, and we teach our dogs all kinds of things, and we’re always dreaming up new things to teach our dogs as well. 

Laura Reeves [2:41] You get Dog Scout badges, right? 

Sally Hoyle [2:42] Absolutely! The first badge—they do have to pass a behavior evaluation to earn what we call their Dog Scout title. 

Laura Reeves [2:55] Sort of like a CGC (Canine Good Citizen) or something like that?

Sally Hoyle [2:58] It is very similar to the CGC. It has a few more complex elements than that. We actually have our dogs lead an animal of a different species and prove that they’re safe around other types of animals and wildlife as well. It’s similar to the CGC. And then once the dog has the Dog Scout title, the world of specialty merit badges is opened up completely. We have, right now, about 120 specialty merit badges. And they cover all kinds of different things, from responsible pet parenting things—like first aid and canine nutrition, of which the dog still has components of those that they have to complete. We do community service work. That’s a big part of what we do, because we believe that in promoting our very well-behaved dogs, we can encourage other people to train their dogs as well. And then we do all kinds of dog sports, from agility to fly ball to carting to freestyle dance to—you name it, we have a badge on it. Our dogs can also do things like learn to paint with their paws. They learn to play musical instruments by using their nose. Those are two of our very first obedience-type badges that we teach. We call them Shaping Badges. That’s where we’re shaping different behaviors and teaching our dogs some great things. That’s how we teach people to teach their dogs, usually with those two badges. 

Laura Reeves [4:38] I love that! Sally, this organization has been around longer than I realized. Talk to me about why the Dog Scouts of America was created originally.

Sally Hoyle [4:50] We are actually celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. 

Laura Reeves [4:55] That’s crazy. Like I said, this has been around way longer than I knew at all. 

Sally Hoyle [5:00] Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I was not around in the beginning. I only wish that I could have been! Dog Scouts was founded in 1996. Our founder had this great Border Collie. Her name was Carly. And Carly could do all kinds of things! And not just the regular things. She did lots of dog sports but not just dog sports. She had all kinds of cool tricks and behaviors that she could do. Lonnie kept thinking, you know, there’s just nothing that celebrates the other things that my dog can do, the way my dog is so well-behaved, the way my dog can do these cool tricks. All of these different behaviors—there was no way to celebrate those. And then she got the thought in her head: Wouldn’t it be cool if a dog could go to camp in the summertime and learn to do more of these kinds of fun things? That’s kind of where we started. The first camp was held in 1996.

Laura Reeves [6:03] Okay, so you have a camp every year and the camp is in…

Sally Hoyle [6:10] Our camp property is in Northern Michigan.

Laura Reeves [6:11] That’s what I thought. I was going to say Michigan, but I didn’t want to be wrong! 

Sally Hoyle [6:15] We also have satellite camps that don’t have permanent locations, but we have groups in different parts of the country. Different members, different troop leaders, that will run these smaller satellite camps, though they are not as regular as the Michian camps. The one in Texas, for example, has taken place for the past 15 years with the exception of last year. 

Laura Reeves [6:40] Wow. So do you have Dog Scouts of America chapters in every state?

Sally Hoyle [6:45] Well, we have Dog Scouts of America troops. We have a troop wherever we have enough members and enough interest to participate in things together. We also have members that are very active members that do not have a troop in their area. We welcome those members as well. We engage with their dogs through our badge program and through the fundraisers that we do throughout the year and other activities that are non-camp activities as well. We also have members in Canada and in the UK. Just this year, after 25 years, we got our first two dogs that passed their Dog Scout test in the UK. And then the day before yesterday, I evaluated a third Dog Scout in the UK, so we have some excitement going on over there right now, too, which is kind of cool.

Laura Reeves [7:43] International! I like it. When the dogs go to camp, it’s every summer? And their owners come with them, right? 

Sally Hoyle [7:54] Oh, yeah. Their owners come with them. We have done camps every summer in Michigan since 1996, with the exception of last year. We normally do more than one camp per summer. In some early years, it was up to 5 camps we did on this property. Our very first camps took place in other parts of the state. We did not have our camp property at that point. The property was purchased in 1999, and our construction on our lodge began in the year 2000. The first camp that happened on this property was in the year 2000 as well. The lodge wasn’t even finished, so there wasn’t a roof in some parts of it. 

Laura Reeves [8:38] Oh my gosh! This is amazing. So you have a lodge. I have so many questions. How many people can you accommodate at the lodge? Is there tent camping and RV camping? How does this work?

Sally Hoyle [8:51] We do have a lodge. The lodge contains our kitchen and our main meeting area, as well as our restrooms and showers. It also has both group rooms and private rooms, so the private rooms are small and the group rooms are much larger. They can handle up to 3 people, though normally we try not to put that many people in a room. We also have 6 individual cabins that people can rent. Our newest cabin went in in 2019. And we have RV sites. We offer tent camping as well. We pretty much try to accommodate anybody who wants to come up.

Laura Reeves [9:35] I think that is fabulous. And how large is this property? I assume it has hiking trails and fun stuff like that.

Sally Hoyle [9:42] Yes. We have a pond, where dogs learn to swim. They also learn different water sports, water rescue, that type of thing. We have many, many, many hiking trails. The property is 80 acres. So we do have an agility field that has all of the agility equipment that you would expect. We do all kinds of things with our dogs on this property. We have different buildings that we use for different purposes. We just keep trying to improve our property more and more each year.

Laura Reeves [10:15] How long is the average camp?

Sally Hoyle [10:20] Typically camp is 5 full days of instruction with a day on either end of it for general information, wrap-up, that type of thing. We were very sad to miss our camp in 2020. But we are thrilled that right now it looks like we are going to be able to do 2 camps that will take place in late August. Those camps are going to be a little bit shorter than our usual camps, but we are very excited nonetheless, and we have some exciting things that we have planned for our campers this year to celebrate our 25th anniversary.

Laura Reeves [11:00] That is so cool! I’m sorry, it’s just fabulous! Talk to me a little bit: you can rent the cabin. I assume there is a fee for the week of camping, yes? 

Sally Hoyle [11:14] Yes. We do have a camp fee that covers all of the meals and instruction. The lodging, depending on what type of lodging you book, we have different price structures for those. Some of the rooms in the lodge rent for $40/night, and our individual cabins rent for $80/night. 

Laura Reeves [11:35] So, a relatively affordable vacation. Do you do families? This is child-friendly, one would assume, or no? 

Sally Hoyle [11:43] It is child-friendly! We typically don’t have more than one or two kids a year, if that. But we do welcome families to come all together. People come with their spouses. People come as individuals. You can bring as many dogs as you have. We do have a multiple dog fee. But we also have members who have 6 dogs. We accommodate dogs of all ages, sizes, breeds, and abilities. There’s always something for everyone. We have had dogs as old as 15 at camp, learning new things. I brought my youngest to camp when she was 8 weeks old. All ages! We have all kinds of different things that we do with them, so we’re just always thinking up new things! This year, we are introducing—we’re calling it Up North dog badge. It is essentially an obstacle course that the handler and the dog will complete together. Both of them have to do all of the different obstacles. 

Laura Reeves [12:55] If it involves jumping, I’m out, man! I’m sorry. 

Sally Hoyle [12:58] We decided we wanted to make it friendly, because we do have handlers that have disabilities. We do have dogs that have disabilities. We wanted to make sure that everybody could participate. Our rules on that one are: you just have to get over it somehow. Pretty and technique is not required for this badge. You just have to get it done. 

Laura Reeves [13:23] I love it. 

Sally Hoyle [13:25] We’re still doing some planning on that one. In fact, I’m up here now and we’re going to be planning out the course that we’ll be using so that we can make sure we have the appropriate logs and whatever else we need. 

Laura Reeves [13:36] I’ve got these visions in my head. This is just fabulous! Talk to me, Sally. As you’re growing this organization, as you’re reaching out to more people, talk to me about what you’re seeing in the community of dog lovers that are participating in Dog Scouts. Are you seeing that grow? I know the pandemic has brought us all so many new puppies. I just think this is such a cool opportunity and a way for people to learn with their dog.

Sally Hoyle [14:13] We call them Pandemic Puppies. There are a number of them! The interesting thing is, we were really concerned last year when we weren’t going to be able to hold our camps because that is a big money-maker for us, and that’s what allows us to do a lot of the other things that we do. A very small group (there were 4 of us that got together and did a little bit of brainstorming) came up with the idea of doing a camp that was completely virtual. I have to say, there were some skeptics in the beginning but I was determined that this was a viable option for us. We did our first virtual camp. It ran the months of July and August last year. It was a huge success—so much so that we did a winter version that we ran in the month of February. Right now, we are planning to do a virtual camp for the month of July this year. We include live instruction. We include video instruction. We provide people with fun things to do with their dogs: silly activities, learning activities, all kinds of different things. We’re finding that the virtual platform is allowing us to be really creative with what we do.

Laura Reeves [15:34] I love that! So we’re going to make sure that there’s a link to the website, and people will be able to find all the information there, correct? 

Sally Hoyle [15:42] Yes, we have a “camps” tab on our website, and that gives you all of the information about all of our camps. We’re really excited. We’re excited to do another virtual camp. This one is wow. It’s just so much more sophisticated even than the one we did last summer. 

Laura Reeves [16:00] Sally, we all learned. Virtual reality has taken over our lives. I think we’re all learning and growing as we go. 

Sally Hoyle [16:09] Absolutely. Our virtual camp this year will end with a live virtual block party. I don’t want to give away too much. 

Laura Reeves [16:20] Secrets! These are secrets. Here’s my question for you: If I (or one of the listeners) would like to join and/or start a Dog Scouts troop, how do we go about that?

Sally Hoyle [16:33] We have a ton of information on our website. We love to start new troops and work with new troop leaders in different areas. We have some great new troops that have started just in the last 18 months. We have complete information on our website about where our current troops are located. So if somebody were interested and were to go there and discover that there is not a local troop in their area, then we have a tab that tells you all about how to go about becoming a troop leader and building a troop in your area. We want to make sure that our troop leaders believe, as we do, in positive training and that they are able to support the vision and the mission of Dog Scouts of America. We help them to understand the history of the organization and our philosophies in how we train, and we support them in going forward.

Laura Reeves [17:28] Beautiful. I love that. Now my final question: I want to know what is your favorite badge, and how do I earn it? 

Sally Hoyle [17:38] Oh my goodness! Well, I will tell you one of my favorites that I had the most fun earning with my dog (with my two older dogs, actually) is one that we call Messenger Dog. If you think back to a situation where you have an outpost and you have to get a message to an outpost and you have to find a lost person—if you visualize that in your head, we set up a designated trail to do this on. The handler remains at the start line while a second person takes the dog out on the trail. That person on the trail drops an item (a sock, something of that nature) and then sends the dog back along the trail to the handler. Now, there’s quite a bit of distance involved so the dog can’t see the handler. The handler can’t see where the person is. In the meantime, the person that took the dog away goes further down the trail and finds a hiding place. The dog needs to not only come all the way back to the handler but then take the handler to where the dropped item is and, further, find the hidden person. I think the reason why that stands out with me so much is because my dogs always surprise me. I’ve learned to never underestimate my dogs. I was so surprised when we went out on that course after just a little bit of training, when I wasn’t even sure I understood it all, and to see my dog come running around that corner, just like she knew exactly where I was (because she did) and then take me to where we needed to go and find this item and then find this person who was hidden somewhere in the woods—it was just quite amazing to see her work. Then I did it with my boy that same year. He did it as well. He’s funny because the older two are exactly the same age but completely different. He doesn’t have the same work ethic. 

Laura Reeves [20:03] Boys and girls—that’s pretty common, I think. 

Sally Hoyle [20:04] He’s a good boy, and he’s really good at what he’s good at, his therapy work. I don’t consider him an athlete. To see him be successful on that course (but in a completely different way) was pretty amazing. He didn’t take the straight route. He took the straight route to come back to me. He took the straight route to get me back to the object. But then to find the person, we did a lot of bushwhack. 

Laura Reeves [20:35] So this is like a tracking course plus hide-and-go-seek. This is fabulous. 

Sally Hoyle [20:42] There you go. Exactly. There are some other badges that I’ve been really excited to be involved in. For some of them, I was involved in the creation of the badge. For example, we do Doga Exercise, where we have our dogs on balls and peanuts and doing all kinds of exercises so we can keep them fit. That one was very exciting for me because I did all of the research and helped the organization develop that badge. There are others that are very special to me, but I think the ones that stick out most in my mind are the ones where either we worked really, really, really hard to accomplish something or to overcome an obstacle or where my dog completely blew me out of the water and surprised me. Never underestimate your dog! You’ve got to trust what your dog is telling you. 

Laura Reeves [21:35] Trust your dog. I can tell you in every event that I’ve ever participated in that is a performance activity, that is absolutely true. 

Sally Hoyle [21:44] It’s always the handler that makes the mistakes.

Laura Reeves [21:48] Yes! Handler error is real, man. I forgot to mention earlier, Sally. This is open to purebred, mixed breed, any dog, right? This is a very inclusive environment.

Sally Hoyle [22:00] Absolutely! We are completely inclusive. We have some rules, some standards for behavior that dogs need to follow when they’re on our camp property, but we do even allow for dogs that don’t get along well with other dogs. We are able to maintain distance and such. We just don’t allow dogs to cause injury to one another. But we’re very open to all breeds, all ages, all sizes, mixed breeds. We have some fabulous dogs. 

Laura Reeves [22:30] I love it. That is amazing. Well, Sally, thank you so very much! I really appreciate your time. The birds chirping in your audio are just giving me a very peaceful feeling. I wish that I could make the camp, and someday I will. This is fabulous. 

Sally Hoyle [22:48] I have to tell you this property is my happy place. I’m up here now to do some clean-up work and some planning, so I have the whole place to myself right now. This place really centers me. It keeps me healthy. It’s a good place to be. 

Laura Reeves [23:09] Here’s the thing, Sally. Our dogs are so important to us in keeping us centered as well, so I think that the combination of dogs and a beautiful property and fun people—I think it is an amazing vision.

Sally Hoyle [23:25] It makes me smile! 

Laura Reeves [23:28] I love it. Alright, Sally, thank you so much. You have a great day.