A milestone achievement has been reached for Sunbury’s biggest dog club.
The Sunbury District Obedience Dog Club is celebrating 40 years of training dogs.
The group, formed in 1985 by local David Phillips proved popular from the start, with many locals eager to train their dogs.
Over 18 people initially showed up to the first session back in 1985, and now in 2025, the club has grown to over 200 members with more on the waitlist.
Club secretary Sue Anderson said the club was very happy to see it reach this milestone.
“It’s amazing to think that something that started so simply with someone saying ‘I want to be able to train my dog in Sunbury’ … to 40 years later and we’ve got 200 plus members? It’s an amazing feeling to be part of it,” she said.
The volunteer-run club meets every week where owners can have assistance in training their dogs across a variety of disciplines.
“We are a club that does positive reinforcement training, which is reward based training and it’s definitely a gentler, easier way to train your dog where they enjoy being trained and they’re happy and they want to please you,” Ms Anderson said.
Dogs of all breeds, ages and sizes are welcome in the club, with training and competing offered including obedience, rally, agility, tricks, dance with dogs, tracking, herding, scent work and other dog sports.
“We take dogs of all ages, shapes and sizes. We’ve got mini dachshunds and up to and including a cane corso,” Ms Anderson said.
Creating well-behaved dogs is always the goal, and something Ms Anderson prides herself on when training.
“We want to give people ‘coffee shop dogs’ where you can take your dog to a coffee shop and sit outside,” she said.
“A child can run past, and they’re not going to run at it. Another dog will go past, they’ll sit there quietly … just being able to enjoy taking them out to a coffee shop, take them to a park, take them down to the beach and know that they’re going to be well behaved, and socialised for you.”
The club will be celebrating its 40th anniversary with a club dinner on July 26. For more information about the club and to enquire about joining, go to sunburydogclub.com
