Many of us are in the US, so Happy Independence Day on July 4th to those who celebrate! For a fun little game, please participate in our COLOR CHALLENGE during the next week! Just post a picture of your dog (you are also welcome to be included!) wearing or holding something red, white, or blue, or any combination thereof. I'll make a compilation picture for a cute social media picture we can share. I will have a thread in the community for you to put your pictures. I don't know about where you are, but in my neck of the woods, there are a lot of fireworks that go off close by on holidays like these. If your dog hates the noises and you need sedatives or something similar, today is your last day to get that stuff ready. My dogs are pretty okay with fireworks, and one of them actually loves the loud bangs, but I have a 9-month-old puppy who has never done a holiday with us, so we'll see how that goes. I predict there will be lots of snacks at my house tomorrow night. Keep your dog secure during the holiday chaos and make sure they are easily identified in case they try to escape from the noise. Such a scary thought! It's also crazy hot in my neck of the woods. Florida has been an absolute oven for most of June. Remember that dogs overheat faster than humans. Watch for signs like - Heavy panting - Excessive drooling or thick saliva - Weakness or lethargy - Vomiting or diarrhea - Bright red gums or tongue - Uncoordinated movements If you see signs of overheating, start cooling the dog first, and then transport them to a veterinarian. Pour cool water over the dog or submerge them in cool water (don't dunk their heads since they will already be struggling to breathe). Speak to your veterinarian about how to safely cool your dog in the event of overheating. Prevent overheating by erring on the side of caution, especially in humid environments where it is easier to overheat. Train and exercise outside for shorter periods of time and during cooler parts of the day. Make sure that water is available at all times, and that there is good ventilation where your dog spends most of their time. And, although it seems obvious, in most places, this is not the time of year to leave your dog in the car, even during short errands with the windows partway down.

Hi Backyard Dog Trainers! Today is the last day of the May BINGO Challenge. Thank you to all who participated! Congratulations to Emily and Dunkin, Lori and Drover, and Lori and Doby for completing Bingo! And EXTRA congratulations to Charlotte and Bluebell, Jen and Sommer, Emily and Tali, and Emily and Brady for earning Bingo Blackout! Now, for something more serious. I've invested a fair bit of time and effort in this Skool group, but probably not enough to grow it to the point of being worth the money I'm paying every month to keep it open. This is my fault, but between looking at my dwindling bank account and my limited time available, I think that I need to make a change. I imagined this would be a group where people would interact with each other and drive the group a bit, but it seems to have dwindled to only a few people who interact with me based on my prompts. Skool is designed to be a site for people who want to make money and sell classes in their communities. I've not monetized the community in that way. However, to keep it going, I need to figure out something so that I'm not spending hours of time each week AND paying Skool to keep it afloat. My credit card bills say I need to take a different route, ha! I'm also very scattered across platforms, and that's making it difficult for me to have a successful work/life balance. As I see it, the options are for me to 1. create short courses or offer lessons through this Skool (but there would have to be people who want to purchase these regularly), or 2. move the group to a free platform and change up how it works. I'm leaning toward #2 but could be convinced of #1 if there is interest. In regards to moving the group, I feel like my options, based on what I know right now, are to create a Facebook group, which most of you are familiar with, or to create a Substack. I already run Facebook groups, and I already have a non-dog-related Substack, so I'm comfortable using both platforms. A Facebook group would allow people to post easily and would allow and encourage a lot of general chatting, which is what I thought would happen in this Skool group, but it's not. The notifications on Facebook are better than those on Skool. No matter what I do here, I don't get notified that people have posted until much later (if at all). I feel like it's easier to spot a spammer/scammer on Facebook and keep them out. I don't like trying to decide who is a scammer here and who is not.

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!

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?