Episode Details

SUMMARY:

The Fenzi TEAM program is a progression-oriented titling program that emphasizes excellence in training. Each TEAM level adds complexity for the dog-handler team in four areas: the difficulty of the skills being assessed, the potential challenges in the form of food and toy distractions, the challenge of the actual testing location, and finally the quantity of reinforcement allowed during the test.

We invited Denise Fenzi, one of the founders of the program, onto the podcast to talk about creating it and how it all works.

Links

• Recent Team Newsletter
• Self Study: Precision Heeling
• Fenziteamtitles.com
• Fenzi TEAM Players Facebook Group
• thedogathlete.com

Next Episode:

To be released 11/03/2017, featuring Shade Whitesel to talk about toys and common issues, including talking about introducing work to play.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods.

Today we have Denise Fenzi with us again, this time to talk through the Fenzi TEAM titling program and then share a little bit about her upcoming book. For those who may not have heard the earlier episodes where I chatted with Denise, she is the founder of the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and, more recently, the Fenzi Team Titles.

Melissa Breau: Welcome back, Denise!

Denise Fenzi:Thank you. How are you?

Melissa Breau: I'm good. I'm excited to talk about TEAM today.

Denise Fenzi: I'm excited about TEAM.

Melissa Breau: So to start us out, do you want to tell us what TEAM stands for?

Denise Fenzi: Training Excellence Assessment Modules.

Melissa Breau: And why did you pick that name?

Denise Fenzi: Well, actually, it was crowdsourced, so I just explained the program on a Facebook list and asked people to contribute their ideas. My experience with Facebook and crowdsourcing is I can come up with a really good answer in a lot less time than I could on my own. So, within an hour or two, somebody came up with that, and I thought it very much described what I was interested in, which is a team event between a dog and a handler. And I wanted to emphasize the training aspect of a competition in this case, and so it fit very well. Training, excellence, assessment, and modules works well because they do build on each other. Each level is a module to the next.

Melissa Breau: So where did the idea for TEAM come from? What led you to create the program?

Denise Fenzi: Well, most people probably know that my interest is competitive obedience, and traditionally I have competed in AKC. And the numbers have fallen off badly over a period of time. So I've been competing since I was a kid, so a long time, and back then we would have so many dogs that they would split Open B into two classes, so you would have 60-odd dogs in one class, so that gives you a sense of the numbers. And a lot of things have happened in the meantime.

A lot of new dog sports have come in, and time has gone by, and people have different interests and such. But I hate to see something I love go away, and I think and think about, What was it about the sport that was … why were we suffering so much when other dog sports seem to be doing OK? And as I looked at novice obedience and thought about it, the AKC program was set up a long time ago, when training was done differently, and it was re