E263: 데니스 펜지, 헤더 로슨, 알리시아 로갈, 니콜 비부시(Denise Fenzi, Heather Lawson, Alycia Rogal, Nicole Wiebusch) - "TEAM 6주년 + 새로운 프로그램..."

And I actually got the, the idea from you Denise is I start, I've started yelling cookies and the cookies go flying. And now I'm down to about one or two barks. Unfortunately, that hasn't transferred over into the park where she's still, still happens to be a screaming Mimi, but we're working on it. So that's what I'm working on mainly with her. Plus my obedience. I'm going to try and get her a couple of titles this year. If I, if I can get to it, that that's what I'm doing. Well, I'm glad I was able to contribute. Yes. Back and forth advice. We're all about that here, right? All right. I'll go ahead. I'm Nicole Weebush. And I have two goldens. Strive is about eight and a half and Excel is her son and he is four and a half. And Strive is just three triple Qs away from her rock, which is the rally championship title. Yay. We should be finishing that here pretty soon. And then at that point, she's basically my daughter's dog anyway. So she's going to go to Lexi, my daughter, and she'll get to play with her and mostly agility. Lexi doesn't really love obedience and rally yet, but I'm working on it. And then Excel is, like I said, he's her son and we spent the first four years of his life working on life skills and we finally have that down. So now we're out in the ring. This past weekend, he earned his first two triple Qs. So he's running with the big dogs now in rally. This is AKC rally. With a ton of placements. And I was really, really happy with how he did. We got some stuff to work on, but overall, he kept his brain in his head. So I was really happy about that. And then we also have a black lab. That's more of my husband and kids dog. And we just, the kids do 4-H stuff with her. I occasionally will use her for demo dog when I need a dog that doesn't know something. Her name is Kira and she is five. Awesome. Alicia? Hi, I'm Alicia Rogel. I have Labrador Retrievers. I have, Mesa is just about 13 and Cooley is six. And I'm hoping for a puppy in the fall. We'll see if it all pans out. Currently working on obedience skills. I will completely admit I'm sort of a seasonal trainer in the idea that we live quite rural. We're in Central British Columbia. I've still got about a foot and a half of snow. So there's not a whole lot we can do outside a lot through the winter. So once the snow all melts and then we sort of get more into doing more outside stuff, tracking, shed training. I was just competing in barn hunt just this last weekend. And I've got scent detection next weekend. Definitely hoping to get to some more obedience trials this year and rally as well. So sometimes, like I said, it's kind of seasonal.

In terms of other pets, I've got a whole menagerie of a lot of other critters. Chickens, rabbits, pigeons, rats, fish, cat, all sorts of critters that are involved in some sort of training at one point or another. Again, that's kind of a winter project to work with some of those guys. Yeah. So that's a little bit about me. All sorts of fun stuff. So as I mentioned kind of in the intro, we wanted to talk a little about the team program today. So I want to start by talking about kind of the existing obedience titling program. And I know we've kind of talked about the foundation of the program before and a little about the program itself before, but it's turning six this year. So, Denise, can you share just a little bit of an update on kind of where the program kind of stands today? You're six. I'm just amazed. Six years. Wow. How did that happen? And it grows and it expands out and more people get interested. And I would say it's doing really well. I'm pretty excited about it. So I know one of the early goals of the program was kind of to break down obedience exercises. And it really kind of encourages good training principles to showcase how to do that for obedience in particular. Do you feel like it's done that? Yeah. Yeah. No. And actually, maybe more important is that, I mean, I knew when we made the program with Deb and Terry and a few other folks, I knew that it would do that. But other people didn't know that. And the difference between now and then is that other people know it also. So, for example, people, my most common advice if somebody is struggling with precision obedience, I'll say something along the lines of, are you familiar with the team program? Yes. Great. For one month, I don't want you to work on any obedience skills except for team one. Just go back and they'll say, oh, but he knows all that. No, no. Just humor me. If you just work on those team one skills for one month, come back and let's talk about it. And it just never fails. If they actually do it, they will be blown away by, oh, my God, the dog just pivots into position. The fronts have gotten straight. You can never spend too much time or energy, no matter how advanced your dog is, no matter what sports you do, breaking things down and going back to those foundation skills. And I do think that message got out there. I mean, we forget. I forget. So I'll be struggling with some precision thing. And rather than saying, oh, you know, take your own advice, go back and do it. I might fight about it for a few days.

But when I remember the value of breaking it down and going back, I'm always sort of, I relearn again how amazing the basics of even muscle memory for basic exercises, you know, using the platforms and the discs. And high, high rates of reinforcement for single behaviors. And then you put them all back together again. And it just is almost mind-blowing to me how effective it is at cleaning up your work. And, yeah, I think it's done that. And I think people know it does that. So, Heather, as a team obedience judge and one of the instructors who kind of teaches team at FDSA, have you seen any changes kind of maybe in the things handlers struggle with over the last six years or kind of interested in the difference kind of from year one until now? I don't think it's been so much changes in the things that they are struggling with, but just the consistent challenges that I see coming through. Number one, as an obedience judge, I would say, at my end anyways, of the teams that I've judged generally, it's 90% failure is handler errors. It's all handler errors. And the dogs are pretty darn close. They're within the acceptable levels. And what happens is the handlers get way ahead of themselves and think, oh, I know this. And they don't go back and review the rules. And how the exercise is to be set up. Whether or not there's a starting point for the exercise. All these different little minutiae as part of the team program that they forget about and they just assume, I know what I'm doing. And then they run their test and then they go, oops, I didn't know what I was doing. And this is the joy, the wonderful thing about team is that it teaches you to take it slow and revisit your foundations over and over and over again. Because as Denise just alluded to earlier, it's like you always have to revisit, you know, the basically the ABCs of an exercise. Because a lot of people come in and they think, and maybe rightly so, yeah, he's got this. He knows all of this. But does he know it the team way? And does he know it the way that it needs to be performed as per the team rules? And as far as what it's done for people is it's made them take a look at themselves and how they are actually, in a way, holding their partner back. Because they're not pulling up their end of the stick, so if you will. And they don't realize that the little things that they do can make a whole big difference in the result of what they get from their partner, their training partner. And that's with the dog.

And so I think over the last six years, people, I have seen people really improve and the people coming through are doing very well. And they're very quick now. They weren't so before, but they're very quick now to say, oh, yeah, you know, palm plant to the head. I should have seen that. But now you mentioned it. It's right there in my face. So they're quick to change and to redirect themselves. And within one or two sessions, their dog's back on track. And that's what I like about team. It's so simple, but it's actually very hard. Simple, but not easy, right? Yeah, that's the word. And that's the joy of it, because you have to be the partner that your dog deserves. Anything you'd want to add to that, Denise, just in terms of how you've seen people evolve? I actually like that expression that, you know, the dog is trained and is doing its part, so you owe it to your dog to do your part. I never thought about it quite like that. And I appreciate that way of phrasing it. Yeah, it's funny how people don't. They think that they're doing their part. But in essence, when we do have my famous line and everybody, everybody who's done taking a class with me knows this. Let's take a look and dissect what's going wrong or where, you know, where you need to make changes. And that's like, let's dissect. And then we go into and dissect something. They go, oh, yeah, okay, I see it. And it's just like, Alicia, remember when I told you to hang on to the seam of your pants to keep you from leaning in towards your dog? You go like, oh, you know, no brainer. Yeah, now I can keep myself straight. And Cooley did an awesome job, right? He just, he, because you straightened up. He was like dead on, smack on on his, on his pivots, right? So it's just those little things like that, that if you do your part, your dog will do theirs. Awesome. All right. So originally, like what is now the team obedience program was kind of created as a more general program, as a foundation for kind of any sport that people wanted to participate in. And things in the program have kind of shifted a little bit. New programs have been introduced. So if somebody is kind of looking at all of the team programs or at a sport other than obedience, is team one still a good starting place? Heather, you want to go first on this? Absolutely. Because it's the basic, basic foundation skills and what it does, no matter if you're doing rally or if you're doing, you know, not the agility, you're doing scent work. We cover everything, all the different little bits and pieces of all the different dog sports.

But what it does is it really introduces the dogs to equipment and, and precision and their, their owners or their, their handlers, body movements. So whether you're doing, you know, rally freestyle or you're doing rally obedience or, you know, you're doing agility, it teaches that connection and it teaches that experience with equipment as well. So all of the things that you, you learn in team really carries over and you can take it to all the different sports that you wanted to work with. Nice. Do you want to add anything to that? No, I think she pretty much, pretty much nailed it. You just can't go wrong with these basics of getting in position, coming to front, engaging with the dog. These are, these are pretty foundational things for everything you do. Yeah. And I think when you're talking about the foundational things as well, is it, it's kind of, if you look at it and this is kind of the old analogy, you know, you got to learn your ABCs before you can make a word, before you can make a sentence, before you make a paragraph, before you write that university thesis. And if you come in with the idea that you've already got your, you know, your junior high or whatever it is that people call it, and your dog hasn't even graduated out of the ABCs, and you're trying to put them and make them write that university thesis, you'll soon find out that you really do need to go back and visit the basics and the foundations. And that's where team really makes you work through each of those steps. So speaking of new programs, there is a new program in the works as we speak, this time focused on Rally. And I know it hasn't been officially rolled out yet, but Nicole, Alicia, and Laura Wadby have been hard at work on the new titles for a while now. We were talking before this that it's been a labor of love. So, Nicole, Alicia, you guys want to just share a little on what we can expect when the program launches? Sure. Yeah, we've been working hard on this program, and it's been a lot of fun. We've had a lot of fun with it. It's set up similar to the Team Obedience Program in that it builds on foundations, and we realize, you know, how important the foundations are. So it does build on foundations, but there are a few key differences. We get to courses pretty early because course and sequencing is a big part of Rally. With the Rally program, the accuracy, we encourage good training, but the super high level of precision that team requires, it's not quite that high in Rally. So we have, like, for instance, for fronts and finishes, we say anything within 45 degrees.

When we're talking about heel position, we give them about a foot leeway, either any one way. So we want good training. We want the dogs to know what they're doing, but we're not as worried about accuracy. And so that's a nice difference for the people that just don't want to worry so much about precision. There are some other differences, too. You know, we can use, you can use praise and kind of encourage your dog more in the exercises and such. And then the verbals and hand signals can both be used at the same time, which is another helpful thing. It's helpful to, for someone who's new to this, it's a little less scary for them. Um, we have levels one to three done right now, and then probably in the future we'll work on four to six, but we're just worrying about one to three right now. And similar to the team program, there will be pre-levels. So you can kind of hop in halfway if you need to just get your feet wet without that pressure of qualifying it or passing every single exercise. Um, so the way we have it set up basically is for levels one to three, the base levels are individual exercises. So there's 10 exercises, just like with team. And then the plus level is a course. So right away in level one, if you do level one plus you, you actually do a course. And in level one, we have two courses. There's a and there's B and then a one a is going to be on leash. And then we get them off leash right away in course one B. And so it's kind of set up to transition from one to the other, but you can, you know, video them separately and that sort of thing. And then with the honors level, you do the course as well, but without reinforcements. So depending on the level for your plus course, you get a certain number of treats that you can use. And we, we show on the maps, what stations can have treats or how many you can use throughout the level. And then, but then the honors, you don't get to use reinforcements. So that's kind of how we've set up the basic program. Alicia, anything you want to add? I was just going to say, Nicole, you've, you've covered like everything I had in my notes. That's fantastic. Um, no, I just, I mean, it really, like, like she said, we've had so much fun doing this. Um, I think we started out thinking it was going to be simple. We were all, we've all played in rally, trained in rally for a really long time. And we thought, yeah, sure. This, this won't be, uh, won't be too difficult. Um, but really trying to, um, compare it to some of the team obedience stuff and breaking down those foundation skills, um, has, hasn't been challenging.

Just, just a lot of thought provoking. And I think everyone's going to really, really like this program. Um, I really like it and we're all really excited for it. Um, but yeah, building on those, those foundations, um, like Nicole said, it's, it's not as precise as, as teams. So it's hopefully not going to be maybe as intimidating for some of those, those people that are concerned about that. Um, we did pull from numerous organizations of rally and as a caro judge myself. So people aren't familiar with Carol. That's a Canadian association of rally obedience. It is one of the more precise, um, rally organizations in terms of precision. So that was in the back of our minds as well. So in terms of, in, of, in terms of training excellence, um, it's not as precise as, as team, but it's probably more precise than some other rally organizations like AKC or CKC. So that if someone was going to compete in any rally, um, venue, then if they have those foundations, they should be successful. Hopefully. Well, as an outsider, I'm sitting here going, this sounds awesome. I love the choices you guys made to differentiate rally from obedience because foundations are foundations and they're going to be quite similar. But I think there are a lot of people who love the concept of team obedience, but they get overwhelmed and frustrated with the precision aspects. It's their heart. Isn't there yet. I mean, it might get there and I love that they could go and get their feet wet with the rally and then realize how many of the skills they have. If they just maybe tighten this one up a little bit in that one and that you're letting them, uh, practice those courses right away. So you get some flow in there. Um, I think you guys made really good decisions about how to differentiate it and make it fun and still make it, um, hard the way it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be challenging. It's not a gift. You know, and the other thing too, that, that kind of comes to mind, um, with the, with the rally there is that it's a, it, for those who will eventually maybe want to go into obedience, it allows them to develop their skills and their, and their ring sort of get rid of the ring nerves and so forth. And that way, because it is a little bit less, um, intimidating and they can actually talk to, to their dog. And then as they're going through, they can dial it back so that by the time they get into the ring, the, the obedience side, where you can't talk to your dog, they've got a transition point to work through. So I think it's going to be a lot of fun for people that aren't quite ready for the, the

precision as, as Denise, as you said, of the team, but they still want to do all the foundation basics as well. And that, and because all the foundation basics cross back and forth between obedience and rally, it's going to be a natural, um, transition for people to be able to, to go from the rally into the obedience. So I think it's a great, it's going to be a great program. Uh, yeah, I love that. And I love that, uh, in rally, you get signs. So I know one of the hard parts of somebody personally, who's been training for team one for a very long time, um, is how hard it is to remember the exercises and the order of the exercises and make sure you do them in the right order and the right bit. And, uh, signs will certainly help with that. All right. So, um, I want to also kind of, I know you both kind of mentioned this in your answers a little bit, but, you know, kind of talk about how the new rally program reflects those goals of kind of the original team program that should you want to start this one? Sure. I'll start. It's Alicia. Um, yeah, again, we, we, we've touched on it or we've talked about it a few times already about how the original team program was about training excellence. And we really tried to do that in this program, um, because strong foundation skills. I, I don't, I mean, we're not sounding like broken records. I know it's good to hear over and over again. Um, they're so, so important. And in rally, I mean, there's lots, there's lots of skills needed in, in any sport, but in, in rally, there are so many skills and exercises that are required, especially as you move up to higher levels. Um, and so those foundation skills are just so, so important. Um, but again, as Nicole mentioned with how great it is to be able to jump right into courses so that there's some flow to it, um, right at the beginning in that first level, I think it's going to be fantastic, um, for people. You have anything to add Nicole? Yeah. Just to kind of, kind of at the risk of repeating ourselves, you know, one of my favorite things about team I've, I've done team with my own dogs. I've been a judge now for a few years and I love that it focuses on training excellence. And I teach the rally classes at Fensi dog sports Academy. And what I really try to, to show the students is, you know, yeah, it's not necessarily about being very precise, but it is about having these really good foundations to build your behaviors on so that when you get in the ring and you add challenge and you add pressures that you can still be successful, that you have these pieces to fall back on.

And that is definitely my favorite thing about the team obedience program. And so we worked really hard in the rally program on doing the same thing, building up those skills, starting with some basic foundation stuff, building them up from there. Um, and because chaining is so important in rally, I mean, you're doing it super early. We wanted to stick that in there right away. So that's the reason that we went ahead and did the courses. Um, like I said, level one is a and B and they're pretty short. And then level two is a little bit longer and then level three, there's even more courses. So we try to progress both in duration, but also chaining and the difficulty of the maneuvers. Um, so I like to that. One of you guys mentioned this about it being challenging. It is challenging. Like you look at it and you're like, Oh, that doesn't look so bad. My dad can do that. And then you go out there and you try to do it. We have a little group of people that have been wonderful in helping us test out all the behaviors and the courses and they struggled. And these are, there's some really good dogs in this group and even us with our own dogs, you know? So it, it's not a gimme. It's definitely, it's not a gimme at all there. You're going to have to put some effort into it, which is good, right? I mean, we're, we're asking for training excellence. We want it to be challenging. Um, so yeah, I, I think as an overall goal of team one obedience, we tried to really, you know, follow that same idea of building on the foundations and just doing good training. And I think we did that really well. Yeah. And coming into that, um, with the, not being a gimme and that's, that's the key thing. Everybody thinks, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You can do pivot on a pod. You can send your dog around a cone. You can send them over and jumped. You can do this, that, and all of a sudden it's just like, Oh, that's a lot harder than I thought it was. Right. And then you go, if you, if you kind of skate through on team one, when you get to team two, it gets a little bit harder team three and so forth, because you don't have the reliability of the, of the props telling the dog what to do. So it's, it's definitely a good skill builder program and, you know, it builds confidence in the individual. And what I like about it too, is that especially when I'm, when I'm teaching a class, is that I can, I can say, okay, well, this happened and that happened and tell, and the key thing I like to do is, and here's why. And when people find out the why they then can go, Oh, okay. Now I understand. I understand.

But if you're always just following through on a program and nobody tells you why something didn't work or what's going to happen, if you continue to do that, then they're going to have more difficulties in it as they go through the team program, because whether it be a rally or it be the, the obedience side of it, you know, they, they, they cross over so easily that if they don't understand the goal of the whole program, then they may have more difficulty than they anticipate. So I know you've already talked a little bit kind of about the maps. But since I know for those kind of looking at the program, who maybe you're coming from another rally program where there's a different map, every time you go to compete, I wanted to talk a little more about the map piece of it. Can you just kind of address that? Like, how does that work for this program? Will it always kind of be the same maps for the same levels? Anything else they should know about the maps? Nicole? Sure. Yeah. So it is the same map for the same level. So we have a level 1A and a level 1B and then a level 2 and a level 3. I spent, well, we all spent, I'm the one that actually designed the maps, but we all spent a long, long time putting the pieces together in ways that, that provide the right amount of challenge. With level 1, we tried to make both courses so that they could be done in a smaller space. So we estimated 10 by 20 foot size for those courses. And then level 2 and 3, we recommend closer to 30 by 40, but there's no requirements as far as distance is concerned. So if you have a smaller dog and a little bit tighter space and you're comfortable, you can tighten up those distances by putting the signs closer together. If you have a large dog, it gets a little difficult because you lose some of the flow. It becomes pretty choppy if you make things too tight, but it is doable depending on the dog and kind of how your dog works. So, and a challenge of this too, which a challenge of this program is that you get to build your own courses. And this is something that most rally exhibitors do not have to do. And once you start, once you've been involved in building a few courses, you, it teaches you a lot. You realize, you know, it teaches you about your dog's direction of travel. It teaches you like where you should be in relation to the signs. You don't knock them over, you know, that sort of thing. So I think that the ability and the chance for these handlers to build their own courses is going to help them a lot in their rally, rally adventures. So yeah, that's, I think that's about it for the courses.

Alicia, do you have anything to add? I was just going to reiterate what you said about how valuable it is for exhibitors. If they, they ever go on to compete in other organizations or really anywhere about building courses, building their own courses. Cause like you said, it's just going to give them such valuable information for when they go to compete themselves about how much, how much room does my dog need? Um, especially if you're doing pivots or about turns or things like that. And I mean, different organizations have different rules. Um, but you know, some, some will ding you if you can't, or if your, your dog bumps a cone, others won't, but it'll give more insight into that sort of line of travel for sure, which is valuable. Um, I was going to say that what's fantastic also is that you're, you're, you're, you have to, we have the signs and the signs will be available as well as the course maps, but you don't have to print those out. Um, people that participate in this can hand draw them. They don't need to be like official looking signs. So it's accessible to people in that regard. Um, we're going to know what, what we're looking at in terms of judging. So it doesn't need to be fancy, fancy signs. Cause I think that's, that's sort of an issue for some people in terms of accessibility for rally is that they sometimes feel that, oh, I can't do this because I don't, I don't have the official laminated signs, the fancy signs to be able to build a course. Um, there's, there's lots of ways to do that just by doing them by hand or things like that. So that's, that's, I think that's about it for the courses you covered, covered a lot of it, most of it, all of it. Yeah. That's a good point about the signs. Thanks for, for reminding me about that too. And yeah, it, it's, uh, you don't realize how challenging it is to set a course until you set a course. And so I think a lot of people doing this program might end up a little surprised, like, wow, I had no idea what the judges go through when they design these courses. So that'll be good for everybody. Hey, maybe we'll get some more ring steward help out of it. And to be clear, you guys mean like put the signs out based on the map, not necessarily like come up with their own entire course map. Yeah. No, that's exactly. I think that was clear, but like, you know, it never hurts to make sure that that was clear. But we're going to make it really hard for them. And just, you just make up your own courses using these skills. No, we have chosen the signs. We have told you where they need to be.

You get to set the line of travel and the distance between the signs, which I think people will find challenging enough. Oh, me too. I think that'll be, that'll be one of the more difficult aspects maybe. All right. So we've done a lot of talking about the program, but, and you've both kind of alluded to how it compares to some other rally programs, but let's just kind of get it out in the open there. Can you talk a little more about some of the similarities or differences between some of the other venues? Does it still kind of have that goal of setting a good foundation if somebody wants to do this first and then go compete in AKC or CARO or whatever other organization or venues are out there? And then, you know, are there pieces that are not covered in the program that students really need to like think about if they want to transition from this to something else? I think, Nicole, I think you. Sure. So that was our intention. And just like the way team obedience kind of prepares you for various obedience type that things, competitions, the rally was, was intended to do that too. So we brought, we took skills from all the rally organizations. I shouldn't say all the majority of, there are a few like very specific agility skills that some organizations have. We didn't go there. We didn't want people to have to worry about weeples and tunnels and all that. Um, the other thing we haven't really done with it is a lot of, um, we haven't done at least levels one through three, the healing on the right side. So there are some organizations that have you heal on the right side, um, which we did not focus on for this part of the program. So ideally, yeah, if you, if you live in North America and you want to do any of the rally venues here, absolutely. This program is going to set you up very nicely for any of them. Like Alicia mentioned, we did, um, you know, although our, our focus is not on really precise maneuvers. We focused enough on precision that you could do well in any of the organizations, even the ones where the precision is a little bit more important. Um, Heather was talking about the handler mistakes being the most common in, um, the team program. And I definitely agree with that as a judge. It's, it's definitely the handler, um, the handler stuff that causes usually the, uh, either the not yet. So the questionables and after teaching rally classes for years, it's completely that way with rally to the majority of the points lost in rally or because of the handler, uh, either they move their feet when they shouldn't, or they don't know what the sign is, or they

don't know when to sit and when to not, or when to pause and when to not. So it really, um, just like with the regular team program rally focuses on the handler. They need to know the rules. They need to know how these exactly how these signs are performed, where to put the sits, where to put the finishes, when to move your feet, when to not move your feet. And that's going to prepare you really well for the other rally venues, because there's just, there's so many, so many different ways you could do things. And it's really common for handlers to get confused between signs. Some of the signs look very similar. So it's really easy to get confused there. Um, so we worked really hard on the foundation and we worked hard on every level kind of taking, um, take the skills from that level and, and kind of build up on that. So the skills get more difficult. A lot of the signs or the courses, like in level one, you have pivots on props and level two, you start to get away from the props or like in the beginning, you do a front from, you get to move backwards and call them the front, but then you get to the higher level and you have to stop. And then without moving your feet, the dog has to find front position. So we really tried to build up those different skills. Um, and then also just with the leash too, you know, the leash is on and low level one a, which we discussed that, um, and thought it was important because in most of the level one base novice skills of rally, it is on leash and leash handling can be challenging, especially for a lot of the fancy students where, you know, we train in our living room and we don't put a leash on our dogs. And I still remember the first time I went into a ring with strive and she thought it was a tug toy. And I had never played tug with the leash before, but she was convinced. And it took some, it took me trying to, it was interesting. I did eventually get the leash out of her mouth, but it was a little embarrassing. So, um, we needed to see that these guys could handle some, some leash skills because especially when the dogs like going around you and such, like you have to practice passing the leash behind your back. So, um, so yeah, I think that probably covers your question. I'm sure Alicia has something to add. Go for it, Alicia. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, you covered, covered most of it. Um, like, like Nicole said, this program's going to really, really set someone up to like for the skills, the foundation skills they need and the more advanced skills that, that build on those foundations to go and compete in pretty much any of the organizations in,

um, in North America here. The one thing obviously that, that this program doesn't do, that is a little bit different because we've got the base sort of program then plus and honors. And I know that honors in, in team, it's that you go and you take those skills somewhere new and we don't have that in the rally program. Um, so if you are going to go and, and compete at in trials, like in-person trials, then that is something that you're going to want to work on with, with your dog before you go and take them to that environment. So can they do these skills, um, somewhere outside of your backyard, um, and with those distractions and things around? Cause obviously that's a very, very different setting. Um, so that is one difference that if people are going to take, take these skills that they're working on in, um, the rally program to actual in-person venues, um, that is something that you would want to work on. Awesome. All right. To round things out, I just want to give everybody, um, kind of a second to maybe share a closing thought or, um, you know, one final thing kind of on this topic of team, Alicia, do you want to start us off on this one? Sure. So, uh, I mean, we were talking about it a bit before this meeting. I can't believe that it's been six years for team. I mean, I've known about it, um, since the beginning and I mean, just what an excellent, excellent program, well thought out program. And my personal experience in it was, again, I've known about it for such a long time. I've trained dogs through utility. I just recently took a class for, um, team level two with Heather, because I really needed someone to sort of kick my butt into gear with one of my younger dogs. Um, and it really, really got me into gear with focusing on these, these team exercises. And again, I, I admittedly had times where, oh yeah, my dog knows that. Oh, that's easy. Yeah. I can do this. No problem. He can do this. And then putting it all together and getting it on film. And, and I really was able to identify where those gaps were, um, which was great. I mean, obviously we're nowhere near like ring ready, but it's a great perspective for me. Um, and I will also say that from personally, me being in a very rural area, I don't have anyone to train with within hours, the closest place to trial in rally or obedience would be a good three hours away. Um, and then in the winter time, it's even worse. There's nothing. Uh, so just to have, have a program like this to be able to work on those skills, um, when you don't have access to other trainers potentially, um, and just really, really have those foundations

set in stone has just been so, so helpful. Not just to me. I know so many people all over the world really with this program, um, and the opportunity to earn titles as well is just fantastic. Um, so I'm, I'm hooked for sure. And, and I mean, I've, I've been doing it with my, my old girl. She's almost 13. She doesn't, she's not ready to quit. She wants to keep working. And my mantra really is enjoy the journey. Um, I love titles. I love competing, very competitive person, but really, um, the journey. Journey is, is where it's at. And I've been having so much fun with this team stuff, even with my, my old girl. We, we, I mean, she's long past retired being in the ring, but it's still super fun to do this with her. That's awesome. Uh, Nicole, do you have a final thought? Well, continuing with what Alicia said, um, I, I love that the, the flexibility that having a virtual program gives you. And I think people, you know, really found that out over COVID when we were able to do like now trick dog, you know, and, and AKC rally as a virtual program. And, and it, it really opens up that world to people that can't do in-person dog shows for whatever reason, maybe their dog is reactive. Maybe they get nervous around other dogs, whatever. Um, so I love, I love that. Um, and then the other thing I love about, about team is how it really focuses on good training and building on those foundations. Um, and I wanted to mention too, that if people are interested in this rally program and they're just not sure where to go or how to get some help that my foundations class will definitely cover all the skills needed for level one. Um, I have several rally classes that I teach at FDSA and it goes all the way up through the levels and the rally foundations is running the session in April. The registration, um, is open. So if you're kind of wondering, oh, this sounds really great. How do I get started? Then come join me in rally foundations. It's a really fun class and we all have a really good time. So, um, just to give people that option to, um, if they, if they just need some extra help with the training. Awesome. Heather. Yeah. And I think of both, um, actually Alicia and Nicole touched on, on things that, you know, for a person who may not have enough self-confidence to sort of join up with something new, doing the online is a way to build confidence and to, and to learn without sort of the, the prying eyes and the judgment that can sometimes happen, you know, in, in, in dog sports. And at least with team, you've got a good way. You've got a really great group, um, on, on the Facebook, the team players group, everybody

supports everybody. You've got, um, for the different team classes, um, you have your, your Facebook study groups, which is, which is fantastic. Um, and I think it's team is just basically it's building on you working with your dog and supporting each other through, through your journey. And, um, it's, it's a great opportunity to sort of dip your toes in, uh, and see what, you know, those things that you see on TV and all the different types of things you see people doing on TV with their dogs. You can actually do it virtually with Fensi Dog Sport Academy in both team and, and, um, and rally team obedience and rally obedience. You know, it's just like, we've got the team one, um, obedience class going this semester as well. So if you're, if anybody's interested, just dip your toe in, take the plunge, whether it be bronze, silver, or gold. Um, you know, it's a, it's an opportunity that, that is, um, easily, easily worked through. You get lots of good feedback. You get, you have fun. It's, it's about working with your dog and just doing something together. So. Awesome. And I'm glad you mentioned the team one class running also. And I know Laura is not with us tonight, but she's got her team three class on the calendar, which I know only comes around once a year. So, um, for those of you that are listening to this and going, oh, this is like reminiscent of the fact that I finished my team one and I've maybe got most of my team two skills and I'm thinking about testing. Um, I know Laura's mentioned on Facebook that because it only comes around once a year, go ahead and take the class, get the skills on board. Um, you don't have to already have your team two title take. Yeah, exactly. Cause that's a really, the team three is a really good class. And if you've done the one and the two and you're looking for to continue on and, and you really should, um, you know, Laura's got a really good class with the team three going. All right, Denise, any final thoughts about team? Yeah. I want to break it down one more level. So I want to make it super clear. Anyone can do team titles, whether they take classes with FDSA or not. Anyone can join the Facebook groups that are not associated with FDSA in the class, but associated with team. So you are more than welcome to join FNC team players or the other groups, whether nose work or cooperative care, we welcome you. Anyone can test. Anyone can choose to use the program simply to focus them and motivate them because a lot of us need a little bit more direction in front of us without, you don't even spend a penny. We're offering it as something awesome.

If you want to take it as a class, we'd love to have you. If you want a title, we'd love to have you, but you don't have to. You might just enjoy doing it for your own personal gain. And we want you to play with your dog and enrich all that comes with working with your dog and what that brings to you, somewhat independent of our role in this. So please join us, even if you choose not to take classes or aren't sure you want a title. You'll have a good time. You'll meet some nice people. And I suppose the one piece we kind of left off of that is where they should go to actually read about the levels and register their dog and all that stuff. So the website for the kind of the head website for FENZ Team Titling stuff is FENZeteamTitles.com. So F-E-N-Z-I-T-E-A-M-T-I-T-L-E-S.com. And from there, you can navigate to the individual program pages and sign up for the newsletter. And if you want to be one of the first people in the know when the rally program is officially ready to launch, it's out there. You can go check out the course maps and whatnot. Being on that newsletter is going to be your best bet. So you can do that right there on the homepage. Awesome. All right, guys. Thank you all so much for joining me. This has been excellent. And I cannot believe it's been six years. I still remember talking about it when the program first came out. So it's like it just started yesterday. It's just like, where does time go? It flies away. It really does. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Petra Ford to talk about training our dogs to have a positive emotional response to the pressure of the competition ring. So kind of the in-person competition piece that we alluded to tonight. If you haven't already subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. We'll have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Line. Thanks again for tuning in. Happy training. See you. Thank you.