Hi Everyone! After some consideration, I'm going to keep this group open and free for the foreseeable future. However, I am planning on offering private online agility lessons tailored to your personal needs and designed to fit in your backyard or training space. I will have more details ready soon. If you've taken classes with me, you know my style of designing courses and offering reviews, analysis, suggestions, and support. But for everyone else, I'll work on getting more info set up soon. If you're interested and you'd like to be one of the first involved, please email me ([email protected]) or message me here. I'm looking forward to this! In other news, next week, I'm going to set up a "Red, White, & Blue" challenge that will wrap up on July 5th. It should be fun and easy. I hope you'll join us! I'd like to get more conversation going in this Skool. Do you have a topic you'd like to talk about? Start a discussion or just reply here, and I'll do it for you. Did you train or trial this weekend? Brags, boasts, and tales of woe are all welcome! Thanks for being here! Brenna

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.

Brenna this idea might be something you can incorporate into June Backyard. I have Bluebell bobbing for cucumbers.

Post your Bingo submissions here! Include dog's name and behavior completed with each post. Please no questions on this thread. Ask them in the Rules thread. Thanks! Good luck!

How was your weekend? Did you train or trial? Tell us about it! Don't forget that our Bingo group challenge is still going strong. Just visit the Skool group and check out the pinned threads for more info. One of our group members is planning to do the challenge with some friends at a picnic. I'd be happy to help facilitate group efforts or team entries if you are interested. Just message or post in the group. I'd love to bring in some more members and get more conversation happening! Speaking of conversation, I would love it if you would reply to this post in the group! You can brag, report back on your weekend of training, or just include a picture of your dog (or dogs). And tell me what you would like to see in this group to make it worth participating in! Shameless plug: Did you know I created two super niche coloring books? In one, you'll spend a day at an agility trial with some adorable gnomes and their talented dogs. In the other, you can answer the question that I know you've been pondering: what if a dragon was your veterinarian??? :) Check out both books on my author page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/brennafender And please tell your friends, neighbors, and random strangers about them too :) Have a great week! Brenna PS: Attached are some photos from one of my coloring books: "Dog Agility Coloring Book & Story, Which Gnome & Dog Will Win Today?"