The spring session of Backyard Training Matters, A Weekly Training Group, is up for sale on Clean Run! Join now and you can weigh in on what types of things my courses should focus on this session! I made this Backyard Dog Training Matters Skool group originally as a place to continue the conversations and connections formed in my Clean Run training group that meets twice a year. Many of my repeat students are in this Skool now, so I wanted to let them, and everyone else, know that the course is open. I'd love to see anyone who'd like to work on their agility skills consider joining us for 6-weeks of agility training and fun! Thank you in advance for your patience in reading about my course. There's, of course, no pressure on you to register for the course. This Skool group will remain open and free of charge -- it is separate from Backyard Training Matters in the Clean Run Learning Center. I just want to tell you about what I'm doing that's available. If you'd like to share it with your friends, I'd be super happy for you to do that! Here's my spiel for those who don't know me and don't know about this Clean Run course: ***I may not be well known as an agility competitor, but I'm an expert in designing small-space agility training courses (I've written two great-selling books on this topic!), I've got a great eye for handling analysis, and I know how to create a positive and supportive coaching environment.*** If you train agility skills frequently at home, you will find that you make much faster progress toward your agility goals than if you only train once a week at class. *Don't have a lot of space? *Don't know what to train? *Don't have the motivation or support you need to get to work? Backyard Training Matters with ME -- Brenna Fender -- can help! This weekly training group is a unique opportunity to improve your skills in a supportive, friendly environment—all while training in your backyard! Each lesson takes a variety of challenges from upper-level agility courses and replicates some of these challenges in an approximately 40' x 40' space.

Let's talk about it! I competed last weekend in Fetch for the first time and it was a blast! My Whippet, Parker, got his Novice title. I think the next available Fetch event for me isn't until August, although I'm not sure about that. Hopefully we can be there. I think we're ready for Intermediate now. I'm spending today working on videos for my job (all the videos are starring my dogs, so that's cool). I'll post one of them in the comments so you can see what I'm doing. Tomorrow I'm going to do some conformation training with my English Toy Spaniel puppy. What's up for you?

Congratulations to Lori with Doby and Drover, and Emily with Brady and Tali for completing the ParCourse Challenge! Their certificates are in the classroom. Thanks for participating! It's time to get this group hopping! What should we do next? A similar type of challenge? The last one wasn't well-received, so I think maybe we need to change things up. I'd really like to see more conversations here, so I do think something like a weekly conversation topic would be cool. What do you think about that? What about some different exercises here and there for different sports? What do you want from this group? Just for fun, I'm attaching a coloring page that's available for free on my Buy Me a Coffee Shop. There are several free things there that you might be interested in. Check it out! Here's the link: https://buymeacoffee.com/brennafender/extras Thanks! Brenna

Any plans? I'm doing some conformation training with my puppy and I need to figure out how to enter a Fetch trial! I guess I need to read the rules first so I am sure I have what I need and then enter. :) Hope you all are well!

Hi Everyone! I have not been starting a lot of new threads lately and I've not posted my own attempt at the March Challenge, which seems to have fallen flat for everyone. I apologize for my absence... I've been having some health problems that have been a little overwhelming, including vertigo which limits my computer time. If you see me on Facebook and think I seem active there, I actually work in social media as part of my job so I have to prioritize that. I'm hoping to be well enough to fly to watch my daughter swim at the Collegiate Artistic Swimming National Championships at the end of next week. It's a *6* hour flight for someone with vertigo, so it may be the worst thing I've ever done to myself. We'll see. I'll keep you posted. So please comment on a few things so we can keep this group going and serving as a supportive, helpful environment for everyone who enjoys dog training! 1. What are you up to? Are you training and/or trialing? In what sports? 2. Do you have any brags from recent accomplishments? If so, please share! 3. What kind of thing would you like to see for the April challenge? Do you want it to be related to tricks? Agility? Basic foundation skills? Rally? Fetch? If you'd like to help support this group, please check out and share with a friend my dog-related coloring books on Amazon (https://amzn.to/4thZu1B) and my dog agility skills and drills books on Clean Run (https://www.cleanrun.com/product/ready_to_run_vol_2_agility_skills_drills_for_small_spaces/index.cfm). I also have several on-demand courses that are dog-sport related, also available on Clean Run (https://www.cleanrun.com/category/online_dog_training_classes/online_dog_agility_courses_by_instructor/brenna_fender_online_agility_classes/index.cfm).