The Youth Education Program - YEP!

Contact us at (269) 343-9020 or tkellam@ukcdogs.com to become a UKC-approved YEP! club.

Special thanks to our Youth Sponsors!

United Kennel Club is a leader in the sport of coon hunting and involving and recognizing our coon hunting kids. From youth bench shows at major events, to the Next Generation News and the For Kidz Only sections of COONHOUND BLOODLINES, to the UKC/CB Horizon Awards, to the Youth Championship Event Series, to the Youth National Championship, etc. I don’t think it can be debated that any other registry does as much for their youth as United Kennel Club. Are you ready to go to the next level?

For the past couple years, those of us at UKC have been approached by coon hunting clubs across the country to expand our youth-only licensed events. We are proud to announce this opportunity has arrived and invite your club to consider the following.

• Are you interested in reaching out to instruct and positively influence those who are not currently involved in the sport of coon hunting?
• Are you interested in preserving the future of your club and the future of the sport?
• Are you interested in providing family activity at the club level?

If your club is founded on the same principles as United Kennel Club, then we already know your answers to the above questions. Now you have a decision to make. Are you willing to go the extra mile in an effort to provide the above? We hope the answer to that question is YEP!

As you read through the following suggestions, and hopefully commit to conducting a YEP course, please keep one thing in mind. This is a new program and we are all learning as we go. The items below are offered as a suggestion to you in helping to plan your activities. We encourage you to be creative in your design and application of this course and offer you the leeway to put your own ideas to work. Please share your ideas and suggestions so that together, we can build a fun, interesting and educational program that will keep our kids involved and perpetuate the sport.

Setting Your Program Dates – This course was designed to be conducted by holding three separate meetings to complete the course requirements. We would rather clubs NOT try to conduct the entire course in one day. There is simply too much information to be covered adequately in one meeting. We must also keep in mind the attention span of our audience and our desire to make this fun and interesting. We recommend three separate meetings spaced at least one week apart. Whether the meetings will be held during the week or on weekends will be left up to your club to decide what works best for you. Families today have many activities to work into already busy schedules. Depending on the time of year the course will be scheduled, you will need to consider such things as school, holidays, extra-curricular sports, work obligations for parents, other UKC club activities in the area, etc. While it may be impossible to accommodate everyone’s schedule, it is in the best interest of the course to accommodate as many as possible. You will need to submit your course meeting dates at the time you apply for YEP approval. The Basic Course Objectives – The course requirements can be broken down into three basic segments. First, kids must be active participants in class discussion and complete the very brief course work at the end of each chapter of the workbook. Instructors verify this by checking the participant’s workbook at the end of the course and indicate such on the course completion verification for each student. Second, each kid is required to introduce someone new to the sport. The new person being introduced can be of any relation to the YEP participant; classmate, friend, neighbor, cousin, etc. The new person can be any age, including adult. The introduction to the sport can be made by bringing the new person to a YEP meeting, by taking the new person to a coonhound event, or by simply taking the new person coon hunting on a pleasure hunt. They must, however, introduce the new person to the sport during the timeframe of the YEP course. Instances where they have previously introduced someone new to the sport, though valuable, should not be considered as approval for the course requirement. The final requirement specifies that everyone participate in a non-licensed event upon completing the course. This is simply a buddy hunt or practice show. The club should make every effort to stay as close to the actual rules for conducting these events as possible in hopes that it will better prepare the participant for a licensed event in the future. For a buddy hunt, be sure to separate the kids into age classes. Also, assign adult non-hunting judges. While you may allow parents to slightly help the younger age group in identifying their dog, have the older kids do it on their own. Adjust your hunting time accordingly since the event is non-licensed, it’s not necessary to have the younger kids hunt for as long as the older kids.

Ready to get started? Contact us at (269) 343-9020 or e-mail tkellam@ukcdogs.com to become a UKC-approved YEP! club. Once you've become approved, we will send you all the supplies you need, but we've also made them available at the click of a button! YEP! Booklet Club Application Form Youth Enrollment Form Youth Evaluation Form

Planning Chapter Activities – By breaking the program into three different segments held on different days (or nights), it will be easy and recommended that you line up a guest speaker for each segment. Unless the course instructor is comfortable going through the chapter requirements at a level past what is covered in the workbook, this option makes a lot of sense. If you were to simply cover only what is in the workbook, the meeting will be very short. The workbook should be used as a guide to help you determine which topics to cover during a particular meeting.

For instance, section one of the workbook deals with breed history, responsible ownership, choosing the right coonhound and registration basics. For this specific class, you might line up a reputable breeder from your area who can talk about the different breeds, selecting a pup, being a responsible dog owner and the registration basics. Most breeders will be able to discuss the pedigree as a tool, and which basic forms need to be filled out in the registration process. The instructor may find it easiest to first cover the basics of the whole section at which point the program is turned over to the guest speaker to go into more detail.

Section two deals more with housing, feeding, and health care of hounds. This section is ideally suited for someone from the Veterinary field or a feed specialist to address the meeting.

Section three covers training, hunting, competition, and sportsmanship basics. It is ideally suited for an individual or two from your area who are known to be a good trainer or successful competitor (hunt, show or both) who are also well-respected as good sportsmen.

It’s Not About Pass or Fail – Please keep in mind and stress to participants throughout that this program is not about pass or fail. The primary goal is education and participation. In order to lend a note of seriousness, we have included a quiz at the end of each chapter. But we’ve also added a game to keep it fun. Do everything you can as an instructor to encourage individual kids to take part in discussions.

Another point is in regard to attendance. Use your own judgment regarding this concern. A participant who misses a class for whatever reason should not be held back from receiving credit. They can easily do the chapter work at home on their own or with a parent. However, an individual who only attended one class and missed out on the non-licensed practice hunt or show should probably not receive credit. Remember, participation is the key.

Course Completion – Upon completion of the course, which would include participation in the non-licensed hunt or show (or both), it will be necessary for each participant to fill out the top two portions of the evaluation form. The course instructor may then gather the evaluation forms from the participants and complete their portion. The instructor will then mail all copies of the evaluation forms to UKC in one packet.

Upon receipt of the completed evaluation forms, UKC will mail to each individual who successfully completed the course a certificate acknowledging course completion and a YEP card that is valid for one year from date of issue from UKC. A valid YEP card will allow young hunters to participate in licensed YEP events held at clubs other than the one they completed their YEP course requirements.

Scheduling Your Licensed YEP Event – All clubs that successfully hold a YEP course are eligible to conduct a UKC licensed YEP event. These events are only open to those kids who have completed a YEP course within one year of the date of the event. Licensed YEP events are considered qualifying events for the scholarship round of the UKC Youth National Championship. (Important note – Youth Championship Series Events are open to all youth regardless of whether or not they have completed a YEP course.) Consideration will be given to those clubs that already have a full schedule of UKC licensed events. UKC will attempt to meet standard mileage requirements where licensed YEP events are concerned, but will handle those on a case-by-case basis. All other scheduling requirements as they pertain to licensed events will be in effect.

Helpful Hints – We will close out the instructor guidelines with a few additional helpful hints. Remember to be creative and put some thought and effort into what will make this program the most successful it can be at your individual club. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact United Kennel Club for assistance.

• If you notice, each section covers two different breed histories. It was set up this way to break up a long, monotonous section on the breeds. You might consider asking area hunters to bring in a couple dogs for the breeds being covered during a particular session. While chances are most kids from coonhound families can already identify the six breeds of coonhounds, keep in mind you may have friends of kids in attendance who have never seen a coonhound.

• Try to remain aware of the fact that you are apt to have a wide age range of kids to address. The workbook is geared to target those kids in the 10-12 year old range. You may want to adjust your meeting discussions and activities one way or the other if you have a vast majority of kids in either the older or younger group.

• Please consider having all your participants sign a group thank you card for each sponsor; Black Gold, Tri-Tronics and Owens Products. Feedback from the program to our sponsors will help in securing the funds necessary to be able to continue to offer this most worthy program.

• Please keep good notes as you progress through the YEP course. Though not required, a closing report offering suggestions and ideas would be a very useful tool for UKC in making program changes as well as all other clubs considering offering a YEP course.

• During the competition nite hunt discussion, you might consider passing out a scorecard to each participant and walk through a mock hunt in the classroom setting of Dogs A, B, C, and D striking and treeing in different order and different scoring situations. Start simple so the younger kids succeed and really challenge the older kids with some tough situations at the end.

• During the pedigree discussion, you might consider making up pedigree blanks and have each child do his or her own pedigree. The theory is they may be better able to understand the concept using their own relatives as an example.

• You may wish to consider holding your non-licensed practice event (hunt, show or both) upon completing your discussion on the final day or night of the course. All kids should be present, which will make the instructor's job of collecting evaluation forms easier and more complete.

In This Issue of Coonhound Bloodlines... "Success Isn't Going To Happen Overnight" Laura Bell In the outreaches of Owatonna, Minnesota, you can often hear the sounds of late night barks emerge from the woods, while the owner of the coonhounds contently listens to the track unfold. The track barks fade and soon the Walker hounds have fallen treed deep in the timber, and without a doubt, they have the coon. Making his way to the hounds is their owner, 16-year-old Brandon Becker, who spends many nights like this in the woods with his hounds - nearly every night in the week, he says. Read more here Learn more about Coonhound Bloodlines

This Weekend At UKC Don't forget this coming weekend is the Minnesota State Youth Championship! The event is being held in Green Isle, Minnesota. It is a youth only event open to all kids between the age of five and seventeen. It is a UKC licensed event awarding championship points and National Championship qualifying. Bring all the kids for family fun with the hounds! Find an event in your area.

About UKC Coonhounds Hunting with hounds is an American Tradition that still enjoys immense popularity. UKC's competitive hound programs offer events for coonhound enthusiasts belonging to over 1,300 clubs throughout the United States and Canada. In fact, one of the UKC's series of events enters more than 17,000 coonhounds annually and ranks as the largest sporting dog event of any kind in the world! Read more here.