Hi Friends! How was your weekend? Did you train or trial? Share your successes here! On Sunday, I took my English Toy Spaniel puppy to a pet store about 40 minutes away to practice conformation training in the aisles with his brother. It went really well. I was very pleased with how well Oliver was able to concentrate both with his brother and "first mom" there. He is really quite full of himself, which is a good trait for a show dog :) Now we need to work on standing still! I'm really pleased with how the Fetch training is going with my Whippet, Parker. I'm attaching a video of a recent practice where he's learning to go to get a specific ball from behind a blind and ignore the ball behind another blind. I shared this video on social media, so you might have already seen it. The training trick here is that the ball he's not supposed to get is a ball he likes LESS, so I made it easier for him to make the right choice, even though the right choice was the ball I put down first, not second (it's always easier to go to the last one placed). Later, we will work with balls of equivalent value. Hope that makes sense! Hope you all are having a happy Monday!

My weekend isn't going to be super doggy, but I believe I have a conformation practice scheduled with a friend tomorrow. I think we are going to meet at a PetSmart and do some gaiting out front as well as inside. She owns his brother, and they will likely show against each other, so we want them to be ready to do their best and not distract each other. I'm also working on Fetch practice in my yard -- I'm trying to teach my dog Parker to go to the spot I'm directing him to in order to get the ball, even though there is another ball in another spot. At the same time, I'm working on forward focus in agility with him. I'm excited that he's finally getting the idea of running directly from tunnel to tunnel without checking in (I'm working at a distance and he'd like me to be closer). My goal is to be able to direct him at a distance in CPE Speedway. What are you up to? PS-I'm going to do a bingo game for the May challenge so get ready!

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?

Hello Backyard Dog Training Matters Friends! Let's celebrate together! I know we've talked some in the group about what we have done this weekend, but let's just BRAG IT UP! What successes have you experienced during the last few weeks? Dog stuff, life stuff, if you're happy about it, share it with us! I'm working on another challenge for the group. It's been suggested to me that we try a scavenger hunt or bingo card, and I think that would be totally fun! It would still be dog-training related; you'd be, for example, doing a sit in front of something blue, or paws up on something red, or doing a trick at a public park... stuff like that. If you'd like to play, let me know if 1. you'd be okay with taking a picture of each of the things to prove that you've done it (maybe just a picture of you and the dog at the park, for example, to make that easier), or if that would be an impediment and you'd rather just take everyone's word for it and 2. if you'd prefer certificates of completion for everyone, or you don't care about that and you just want to play. I'd also like to remind you that if you need a gift for a dog friend or professional, please consider my coloring books on Amazon! I've created two: "Dog Agility Coloring Book & Story: Which Gnome & Dog Will Win Today?" and "When a Dragon is Your Veterinarian" and you can find them both through my author profile at https://www.amazon.com/author/brennafender. Let's hear about your training and trialing successes! Have a great week!

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